Winners all round at earth's landing

The dust is finally settling over the lush green fairways of the Earth course, the grandstands bare, the media centre lifeless and the soul has just wandered off out of the tournament village - so was it all worth it? Well, at the risk of repeating an already over-used cliche - "golf and Dubai were the winners this week". Yeah, I know, and that man Westwood did OK too!

Barring the 2005 Open Championship at St Andrews, the year in which Jack Nicklaus played his last major - I have never spent as much time at a Tour event as I did last week at Jumeirah Golf Estates.

From the well organised parking to the cleverly branded merchandise in the tournament village, there wasn't a stone left unturned in the staging of this tournament. It was a true pleasure to attend.

For me, Friday was perhaps the most entertaining and heartening of tournament days. With 15,000 spectators on that day alone, Jumeirah Golf Estates attracted the type of crowd that the city of Dubai has become renowned for - a melting pot of cultures.

From Emiratis (not instantly recognisable as golf lovers) and badly dressed American tourists, to resident families and party revellers - the Dubai World Championship really had it all.

Perhaps more surprisingly and pleasantly so at that, was the respect shown by those who were clearly non-golfers, to the sheer enormity of the tournament that was being played around them.

The staged Left Bank bar, directly behind the 18th tee and perched precariously overlooking the 17th green, had all the necessary ingredients to become a disaster.

The setting, the stage, drinks on tap, the sun and of course the sense of occasion - I mean what else do you need to have a good old rowdy time? On the contrary, it actually became a pretty cool place to hang out.

It was never going to be easy to marshal, but credit where it is due, for the little time I did spend at Left Bank it was great to see that the atmosphere was kept firmly on the leash but wasn't dampened by the ever ready team waving their "Quiet Please (or else)" batons - great job guys.

In perhaps not the most intelligent move I've ever made, I decided to break in a new pair of shoes while navigating my way around the back nine that afternoon - it wasn't the shoes that were broken by the end of it.

Blisters aside, the amount of people that had flown over on holiday just for the tournament was quite astounding. There's one thing about travelling golfers - they're quite a friendly tourist and never frightened to engage in conversation in between a Stenson chip and a Garcia putt.

The Dubai World Champion­ship has certainly caught the imagination of the global golfing population. Let's hope in 2010, with a polished-looking JGE, the bar will be raised even higher. Good job all round - bring on the Desert Swing.