Dubai: On the course Khalid Al Halyan, a self-confessed golf addict, displayed an indomitable spirit. When he hit the ball you could sense the energy and enthusiasm going into that mighty left-handed swing. Tiger Woods and Wayne Westner, former winners of the Dubai Desert Classic, will tell you a thing or two about his passion for the game having played alongside the charismatic Emirati to win the popular Pro-Am tournament.
Off the course, Khalid says his life echoes golf's values.
"When you were playing the game competitively you don't really grab the moment and understand what's really going on. You just want to go out and have fun," he said.
"But the more I look at golf the more philosophical I get about it. In golf it's all about getting from A to B, without doing anything uncomplicated. You play one shot at a time. The objective is to hit as few shots as you can to get to point B.
"If you translate that in life you have similar goals or targets — career objectives or business objectives, where you want to go from one point to another. Like in golf you have obstacles — yourself, the weather, the bunker — all of these represent the challenges for you.
"You understand all the risks or benefits associated with the situation and try to get the best out of it. That's what golf has taught me."
Missed opportunity
Khalid admits that he could have achieved a lot more as a player than he has as an administrator, had he only taken the chances that came his way. One big chance that he let pass was an opportunity to play at the hallowed Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.
"It was 1985 and I was undergoing some management training in Scotland, where I travelled between Glasgow and Edinburgh," he said. "During that time I was invited to have a go at golf, but being naïve as I was at the time, I turned it down.
"In hindsight, had I only said yes, perhaps things would have been quite different for me as a golfer, which I was to become ten years later. That's my one regret.
"But I still have so many wonderful memories of golf, as a strategist and administrator.
"My involvement with the game was two-fold — I started out as an amateur player in 1993 and two years later, having reduced my handicap from 28 to 8, I became totally involved with developing the game in the UAE.
"We set up the UGA, or the Emirates Golf Federation as it is called now, in 1996 and put a proper structure in place. I remember visiting Sir Michael Bonnalack, the Secretary-General of the Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which is responsible for setting the rules and regulations for golf, and being thoroughly impressed.
"We met Bonnalack to talk about the establishment of the UGA. It was a great moment and I could feel that we were on to something big. The UGA was affiliated and UAE golf history had been made. It was one of the most memorable days in my life and a defining moment for me personally."
Khalid acknowledges that in retrospection, that was the easy part. He was not prepared for what would happen next.
"When you get engaged with something you understand where you are now and where you want to be tomorrow," he said. "That was very important for us to understand in order to determine how we wanted the game to develop in the UAE amongst nationals and expats.
Shock
"What we couldn't gauge was just how good our players were. Not until we played in the Nomura Cup, the Asia-Pacific Amateur Golf Team Championship. And we were in for a shock, because we saw that the standard of the players from the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia was way above us.
"I realised that to get to that level we had to do a lot of hard work. Strategies had to be put in place to get our kids up to that level. So we returned to the drawing board.
"We launched the JDP [Junior Development Programme] in 1998 with the help of a sponsor and began to make new plans and set new goals and objectives.
"The key was to create a sort of culture within the sports community to view golf as a career, not just as a player, but in terms of management and operation. We needed to stress there were other aspects involved in the sport.
"When we started the UGA we wanted to make golf accessible and affordable. But the problem we faced was a cultural thing. Locals were reluctant to approach a golf club in the fear of not being given access.
"So we created an awareness programme to break those myths and misconceptions about golf. That opened the doors for Emiratis to take up golf and I can say that the results have been good, if not tremendous."
