DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Tiger Woods knows how to enjoy a vacation. He also knows how to get back to work in style.

Woods won the Buick Invitational in a playoff Sunday in San Diego, his first tournament of the season after taking a six-week break -- the longest of his career.

Hoping to improve his season record to 2-0, he's flown 20 hours to the Persian Gulf for his third attempt at winning the Dubai Desert Classic, which begins play on Thursday.

"After taking that much time off, to come back ... to put the pieces together so quickly in the year is a nice little bonus," Woods said Wednesday.

The entire purse for the event is $2.4 million.

Woods has failed twice to win at the Emirates Golf Course, a palm-lined oasis in the middle of Dubai -- a booming city of 1.5 million. In 2001, he lost on the 72nd hole to Thomas Bjorn. In 2004, he finished five strokes behind winner and Florida neighbor Mark O'Meara.

During his break, Woods went 24 days without touching a club. He stayed home, hung around with his Swedish wife, Elin, and went skiing with O'Meara and his family.

"As far as thinking about any golf course, I made sure I didn't do that," said Woods, who turned 30 on Dec. 30. "And if I did think about my golf swing, I made sure it was brief."

"It was nice to get away and just have some fun with the family and friends and put the sticks away."

The Dubai tournament drew a record crowd of 43,000 when Woods was here two years ago. Without him last year, attendance was down by 3,000.

"Tiger Woods has that appeal to bring in the crowds," said Mohamed Buamim, vice chairman of Golf in Dubai -- the body that promotes the game. "We can only expect the biggest crowd in the history of the tournament."

The world's top-ranked player is joined by two others in the top five -- No. 3 Retief Goosen and No. 5 Ernie Els, the defending champion. Four more in the field are in the second 10 -- Colin Montgomerie (11), David Howell (15), Henrik Stenson (19) and Darren Clarke (20).

Els has won the tournament a record three times, and will set a European Tour record if he makes the cut Friday. He is tied with Bernhard Langer at 69 straight, a mark the German set in 1996.

Opened 18 years ago in a desert on the outskirts of the city, the Emirates Golf Club is now surrounded by gleaming skyscrapers and traffic-choked highways. But the weather is almost always warm and sunny on this tip of the Arabian peninsula.

The jewel of the club is the Majlis Course, which has been stretched to 7,264 yards -- about 150 yards more than it was five years ago when Woods first played here. The greens are flat and lush.

The Desert Classic is the third and final event of three straight weeks of European Tour play in the Middle East. American Chris DiMarco won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship two weeks ago. Swede Henrik Stenson, who plays in a threesome with Woods on Thursday, won the Qatar Masters on Sunday in Doha.

"It's just fun to be out with the world's No. 1," Stenson said. "I think I'll have the motivation up for sure."

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