![]() ![]() Golf in the UAE has certainly come a long way since the first-ever golf course in the Middle East was opened in 1971 Dubai Country Club was a nine-hole ‘ sand course’ built by its 150 members, with borrowed equipment. Last year, Emirati multinational logistics company DP World signed a US$400 million sponsorship agreement with golf’s European Tour to become its title sponsor and many of the world’s top players compete in the ‘Race to Dubai’ - building points from their performances towards the season climax at the DP World Tour Championship each November and the opportunity to be overall champion. Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (since 1999) and the Saudi International (since 2019) have also become regular events, while Bahrain and Oman have hosted major tournaments too.īut despite Saudi Arabia’s recent high-profile attempts to disrupt the sport’s status quo with a breakaway competition, (more on that here), golf’s spiritual home in the Gulf remains the UAE. The Majlis Course at Emirates Golf Club has hosted the Dubai Desert Classic, a permanent fixture on golf’s annual calendar for the past 33 years, and has been joined in the interim by the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship (since 2006) at Abu Dhabi Golf Club and Yas Links, and the DP World Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates (since 2009). Since Emirates Golf Club opened in 1988 as, quite literally, a green oasis in the desert, the UAE’s golf profile and its role in the global game has grown enormously. ‘Golf in the desert’ has become one of sport’s great oxymorons but the arid landscape of the Middle East is now punctuated by some of the world’s finest golf courses. ![]()
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