Top stars vie for Dubai Ladies Masters glory

Headlining this season-ending event is the face-to-face duel between Spain's Carlota Ciganda and Caroline Masson, of Germany, with both golfers gunning for the ISPS Handa Order of Merit crown here. Ciganda leads Masson by €31,958.80 in the prize-money stakes and the latter needs to finish inside the top three – and for her summit-sitting adversary to do worse to a varying degree on the leaderboard – in order to prevail.

They will tee off together on the first hole too at 12:05pm in a high noon showdown alongside American superstar Michelle Wie, who has now sufficiently recovered from a bout of illness to participate on the Majlis course.

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Elsewhere, the reigning OMEGA Dubai Ladies Masters champion Alexis 'Lexi' Thompson begins the defence of her title from the same spot 20 minutes earlier at 11:45am, when she will be joined by Scotland's Carly Booth – who herself is third on the LET Order of Merit – and Caroline Hedwall, of Sweden.

The highest-ranked player in the field, China's Shanshan Feng, will tee off between those two respective groupings at 11:55pm, while another Asian contender fancied to perform well over these 18 holes, Seo Hee-Kyung, starts from the 10th hole at 7:55am.

The home contingent is represented by two amateurs in Nanna Kofod Neilson (First hole, 12:35pm) and Kavita Sehmi (10th hole, 8:35am) and another non-professional novice Namakula Flavia (10th hole, 7:15am) will be flying the flag for Uganda in the emirate.

England's challenge will be led by seven-time Order of Merit winner Laura Davies (10th hole, 8:05am), Trish Johnson (10th hole, 8:15am), Florentyna Parker (First hole, 11:55am) and Melissa Reid (10th hole, 8:15am).