Rafa Cabrera Bello is looking to follow up the "best year of my career" with a long-awaited third European Tour win when he tees it up at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters.
The Spaniard has an impressive record at Doha Golf Club with three top three finishes in seven appearances and just a single missed cut on his debut in 2010.
Missed cuts have not been something in Cabrera Bello's vocabulary of late, having not missed one throughout last season as he achieved a career-best finish of eighth on the Race to Dubai Rankings presented by Rolex.
A Ryder Cup debut and six top tens also highlighted an excellent campaign but the 32 year old remains without a win since the 2012 Dubai Desert Classic, something he is keen to remedy.
"2016 was the best year of my career," he said. "I was very happy with everything I accomplished last year.
"I had a well-deserved break, a little bit of time off. Get the mind off golf and enjoy other things. But now I'm happy to be back. I was happy to start last week to get the actual calendar year going again.
"My goals are to keep improving, keep moving higher up on the World Rankings and this year I'm also going to be playing the PGA Tour as well. So it's going to be a bit of a challenge to manage both but I will still have a strong presence here in Europe.
"I've had some modest success on this course before. I've played well and I feel I'm currently hitting the ball well and performing well. This would be a great chance to get the win.
"I know I finished runner-up and have been up there contending many, many times. Not necessarily all those runner-up finishes give me a bitter taste when I remember them. Some of them were great finishes to manage to sneak a runner-up and, yes, others were where I was leading and I faded away.
I just know that if I keep putting myself in that position, it will happen - Rafa Cabrera Bello
"I just know that if I keep putting myself in that position, it will happen."
Despite his successful history in Doha, Cabrera Bello is taking nothing for granted and knows he will face a tough test when the wind gets up in the afternoon.
"I think it's a great test of golf," he added. "We normally play very, very windy conditions. It's very testing because the greens can get very dry very fast, very quick and they are also hard to read with the grain as well but especially the wind.
"I think, off the tee, it tends to be a forgiving course. But I do like the design. I like the exciting finish it has on the last few holes. Having many birdies on 16, 18, even 17 as well. I think it's a very, very complete and exciting tournament, and the wind factor makes it very challenging.
"It could be a little bit of luck in the first two days with the draw or even over the weekend. The mornings tend to be very, very calm, and afternoon it really picks up and blows."
