Dubai: This weekend’s Dubai Festival City Challenge Tour Grand Final at Al Badia golf club has set the ball rolling for a big winter schedule in local golf.
On top of the DP World Tour Championship (November 20-23) and the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters (December 10-13), which ties up respective men’s and women’s European Tours, Dubai now has the European Challenge Tour grand final (November 5-8) and the Asian Tour finale (December 18-21), bringing the number of season-ending events held locally to four.
This precedes next year’s Desert Swing, which tees off with the 10th anniversary of the HSBC Abu Dhabi Golf Championship (January 15-18), the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (January 21-24) and the Omega Dubai Desert Classic (January 29 to February 1).
Gulf News caught up with Nick Tarratt, director of the European Tour’s Dubai Office, to discuss the growth of golf in the region and what more can be done to ensure its legacy. Excerpts:
Gulf News: The Challenge Tour Grand Final tees-off a fantastic winter of major season-ending golf events locally. How big a testament is this to Dubai?
Nick Taratt: Dubai should be rightly proud of its hosting so many professional golf tournaments and especially high profile end-of-season events. Tournaments have a choice where to go – so it is credit to Dubai that they seem to be the destination of choice around the world. The model for hosting professional golf tournaments with the TV and global media coverage is to play where the pros play. The spike in golf tourism to Dubai and the region with support from Dubai Tourism in their drive to attract 20 million tourists by 2020 must go hand in hand.
Why are all these events coming here?
The first priority for all sporting events in this part of the world is to showcase the country on the world stage to follow the government’s vision. In addition, there has to be an appetite to host golf tournaments at golf clubs through their owners, management and, of course, the membership.
Finally, there also has to be a sustainable funding model. We are so fortunate to be in this part of the world to have a family of sponsors who understand the benefits of sports sponsorship who support initiatives for the good of Dubai. Dubai ticks all the boxes to host golf tournaments; a central location to the world, great golf courses and golf club facilities, a climate that no one can match October to March, the world class infrastructure of airports, road networks and five star hotels and the never to be forgotten traditional Arabic hospitality.
Are there any new events on the horizon?
We are in genuine discussion with the powers that be in Bahrain to host a European Senior Tour initiative. I would be disappointed if we are not making an announcement on this project in the next few weeks for an activity to be held in Bahrain in 2015. However, I would not anticipate it being the season ending tournament as that is already contracted elsewhere in the world. A Senior Tour initiative would complete the ‘European Tour’ deck of events in this region, The European Tour, the Challenge Tour and the Senior Tour.
How can we make sure all this activity trickles down to grassroots?
It is probably one of my personal disappointments over the last 24 years that I have not been able to do more in my various roles to encourage Arab nationals to participate. One suggestion I have thought of is to invite each golf club to sponsor two UAE national golfers with a lesson and overall golf, health and fitness programme, in a form of an annual scholarship.
These UAE national golfers could be allocated to a host golf professional at each golf club to mentor them and coach them. Regular get-togethers could be held for these UAE National golfers to gauge progress and this would create healthy rivalries between the UAE nationals, the golf professionals and the golf clubs. With their being currently around 20 golf clubs in the UAE this could create and encourage an immediate 40 new UAE National junior golfers. If the juniors failed to reach their deliverables they could be replaced with another UAE National.
How helpful has the Mena Golf Tour been in this regard and can there be more cross-tour co-operation locally in terms of offering developing players professional invites?
This nine-event Tour must be applauded and encouraged and has certainly made a huge impact for local and regional golf over the last four seasons. The European Tour and the Challenge Tour especially works with all the development tours under the Challenge Tour and we look forward to further discussions with the MENA Golf Tour on all playing opportunities for our mutual benefit.