Golfers jostle to design best course

Dubai: Competition between top golfers is not limited to tournaments they want to design the best courses too.

Ernie Els has countered a claim made earlier this week by world No 1 Vijay Singh, that the course he is designing in Dubai will be the best in town.

Three-times Dubai Desert Classic winner Els, was visiting the site of The Dunes course at the Victory Heights development in Dubai Sports City, Dubailand, yesterday to inspect progress ahead of defending his title.

On hearing that Singh claimed his Nakheel development course would top the lot Els said: "He says his course is going to be the best, and I say mine is going to be the best. All the guys that have played in the Classic a lot of times are building golf courses out here now.

"We compete on the golf course and now we can compete on the design level."

This is Els's second visit to The Dunes; he unveiled the project last year.

Els has high hopes that The Dunes could one day host major tournaments.

"Obviously the classic has been held at the Emirates Course and the Dubai Creek Course," he said. "But at the rate that golf is expanding in Dubai there will be more than one major tournament. This is definitely going to be a championship course."

While The Dunes is Ernie Els Design's first course in the Middle East, the company has been up and running for four years. Els said that design had long been part of his master plan:

"I had wanted to get into golf course design and it was a natural progression for me from playing golf to designing courses.

"It was something I wanted to get into. If you look at Jack Nicklaus, he was the best player ever and he started designing courses early. He started way back in his career and he built up a big base. I wanted to follow his example."

And Els says that building desert golf courses allows the designer greater scope when moulding greens and fairways.

"The design is fabulous on paper and the most important step from here is that our shaper gets the greens and bunkers in the style that I envisaged from the beginning. I am happy to report that I am very satisfied with what I saw.

"In the desert it's a bit easier to move the sand around," he said. "On the negative side, it's difficult to get it to stay put which is why you need to get a lot of water on it."

Asked whether he thought he would retain his Desert Classic title Els would only say: "I'm looking forward to a good week."

The course is being built by construction contractor, Turnpoint Septech and managed by Troon Golf.

The course will be 7,452 yards, with five sets of tees and featuring more than 60 bunkers.