You can always be assured of a tale and some laughter in a Henrik Stenson press conference.

And today was no exception with the serious side of Stenson revealing his right knee is still not 100% after recent surgery, and the second of his two knees that have been operated on his career.

“The knee is still attached; it’s moving forward and I’m lifting the leg,” joked Stenson, who has finished outside the top 30 only once in his last ten visits to Emirates Golf Club.

Henrik Stenson reminds everyone he’s born on strong Viking stock.

“It’s a great week. I made Dubai my home for almost ten years. It’s always nice to be back with a lot of familiar faces, a familiar golf course, which I have some great memories from, especially the win back in 2007, of course.”

“The course is in good shape. The putting green was excellent. I expect to have a good championship on a great golf course.”

Trouble with his knee forced Stenson missed last week’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters for the first time in 15 years to rest his knee, but the World Number Six was pleased with his first run-out of the year in Abu Dhabi a fortnight ago.

“The previous two times I missed the cut in Abu Dhabi, which is never good fun, so I was very pleased with the week, both on the results side and how I played,” he said.

Henrik Stenson captures 2007 Omega Dubai Desert Classic.

“But then it was hard to miss Doha last week.  I’ve played every Qatar Masters since I came on Tour in 20011 and every outing in Abu Dhabi since 2006. so I’m, part of the human tour I guess at these events, so I was ashamed to miss it but felt like I had to give it a rest last week.”

And there was another humourous side to the nine-time European Tour winner and when it was mentioned to him rugby players take longer to recover from a similar operation to that of Stenson’s.

“Clearly, golfers are a bit stronger and it’s the Swedish genes, as well,” he said smiling.

“You have to think we come from the Vikings and there’s the North Wind.”