The Desert Swing of the European Tour – the showpiece events of the Tour’s early season – tees off at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship and Ten Sports, the most watched sports channel in the Sub-continent, will be there to bring all the excitement live and exclusive.

The Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, which is played at the National course of Abu Dhabi Golf Club in the UAE capital, offers a total purse of $2 million and attracts some of the finest players because of the outstanding hospitality provided to them by the organisers.

And it will be no different this year as world No2 Sergio Garcia and No3 Padraig Harrington headline a stellar field and renew their rivalry which saw them go head-to-head at the 2007 Open Championship and last year’s PGA Championship.

Also in the field are defending champion Martin Kaymer, and the perennial desert favourite, world No8 Henrik Stenson.

The Indian challenge will be headed by world No35 Jeev Milkha Singh, while Jyoti Randhawa, Shiv Kapur and SSP Chowrasia are also in the field.

Jeev will be looking forward to continuing his brilliant form of 2008 which saw him win four times across the globe, including the Barclays Singapore Open, the biggest tournament of the Asian Tour, in which he prevailed by one shot over Harrington and Ernie Els.

On the eve of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, the Indian ace said: “It’s great to know that Ten Sports will be covering the European Tour extensively this year. We now have four Indians on the European Tour, who have done admirably in recent times. This is the kind of support we expect from the media.

“2008 was a great year for me, but that’s past now. I have new goals for 2009 and I hope I can do better than what I did last year. I am excited that I am playing all the Majors and WGC events, and doing well in those is definitely a priority, but I hope I will have a good start to the season starting with the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship.”

The European Tour next heads to Doha for the Qatar Masters, before the high-profile Dubai Desert Classic towards the end of the month. All the events will be available live and exclusive on Ten Sports