Preferred Lies December 2007

On top of the world

By John MacDonald

Dubai ups the ante in the golfing stakes

Never a place for doing things by halves, Dubai has now added yet another ‘world’s biggest’ to its already impressive list of magnitude titles.

The announcement that from 2009, Dubai will host a season-ending tournament worth $10 million sent shock-waves rippling through the world of golf.

And if that wasn’t enough to attract the world’s best – the winner of the Dubai World Championship alone will collect $1.66 million – there’s a further $10 million in the pot for the 15 top-ranked players at the end of the 2009 European Tour.

What’s now called the Order of Merit will then be the Race to Dubai, with the winner picking up a $2 million bonus.

Potentially, winning the new Dubai event could lead to the biggest individual payday in golfing history – all of $3.66 million: the cheque for coming first in the tournament plus the Race to Dubai bonus.

The scale of the winner’s take is such that winning the new event would also almost certainly clinch the Order of Merit title which is based on total prize-money amassed over the season.

The Dubai World Championship will be played in the first year on either the Earth or Fire courses at Jumeirah Golf Estates, both of which have been designed by Greg Norman. The agreement allows for it to be played in subsequent years on any of the four courses at Jumeirah Golf Estates.

Dubai will now top and tail the European Tour, with the long-established Desert Classic retaining its status as a high-profile curtain-raiser to the continental- based events.

And all the Desert Swing tournaments – the Dubai Classic, Abu Dhabi Open, and Qatar Masters – now have even greater appeal. Although the venue of the new event has still to be decided, players will want to make themselves as familiar as possible with local conditions.

The incentive for taking part in all three Desert Swing events is now irresistible, financially and practically. Missing out on any one of the tournaments reduces the chances of being in the end-of season Top 15 – and sharing in the $10 million divvy.

Only the Top 60 after the preceding event will qualify for the Dubai World Championship, so no opportunity can be missed to add a few dollars to prize winnings and make the cut.

Players will be ranked according to their earnings from all events on the European Tour international schedule, including all Tour tournaments, the Majors, and the World Golf Championships.

European Tour chief executive George O’Grady says: “The Dubai World Championship will bring a new dimension to the Tour.

“It will provide great drama and theatre throughout the year as all the best players in the world are given the opportunity to compete in the world’s richest tournament.

“What I think is very exciting is that the European Tour will start in this region. The Dubai Desert Classic is absolutely a favourite tournament on the Tour, for all the reasons we’re talking about – and we have tournaments here in Abu Dhabi and Qatar kicking off our season.

“I think the golfing pedigree here is strong. This is rooted in golf. I know it’s business and I know the figures are very high, but the tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Dubai have been tremendous. Qatar has come on but Dubai at the moment has the golfing pedigree.

“When we first came to Dubai in 1989, yes, we got a few spectators on Saturday and Sunday. Now, the game has grown

and taking up. The spectators are tremendous – it’s tremendous all four days but really good on the last day. There’s easily room for two tournaments in Dubai.

“The ideal would be to have the Dubai Desert Classic really kicking off the season or towards the beginning of the season and this Dubai World Championship finishing it. It’s a heady cocktail.”

But it’s not just a new tournament and a renamed Order of Merit that Dubai has landed.

The European Tour’s new international headquarters will be established at Jumeirah Golf Estates, which will host the inaugural Dubai World Championship on November 19-22, 2009.

“As the European Tour has become ever-more global in its outlook it has become increasingly important to us to have an international base in a strategically-placed location,” said O’Grady.

The changes come on the back of an increasing number of European players opting to take part in the PGA Tour in America. Its season-ending event, the FedEx Cup, offers £4.8m to the winner.

England’s Justin Rose claimed last season’s European Order of Merit title at the Tour finale, the Volvo Masters at Valderrama which is being replaced by the Dubai World Championship.

That event was marred by the absence of Ernie Els who was leading the money race but was contracted to play at the Singapore Open instead.
“We take our share of the blame for the scheduling conflict between the Singapore Open and the Volvo Masters,” said O’Grady.

“We can’t be finishing the European Tour schedule in late October now. The PGA Tour have raised the bar in terms of tournament promotion and I’m a great admirer of everything they do, and they’ve just made us sharpen our act.”

Although some commentators have criticised the new tournament as yet another example of throwing money at already over-paid players, US Tour boss Tim Finchem believes the Dubai event will help end complaints that high prize-money in America is harming golf.

“It’s great for professional golf globally,” he said.

“It reduces the clamour that, because purses on the PGA Tour are high somehow the quality of golf is suffering.”
Finchem says the cash injection shows it is possible for golf to match the money available in international team sports.

“It sends a message that slowly but surely professional golf is making strides to keep up with or gain on team sports. World class athletes should be compensated at the same level as team sports – and I’ve said that for 12 years.”

George O’Grady admitted: “We’ve had to re-focus the European Tour.” And this is the way he wants to compete with America. The PGA Tour, with its $10m four-tournament season-ending FedEx Cup series, has been proving more and more attractive to Europe’s top players.

But the Dubai funded figures dwarf the FedEx Cup cash, which is also paid as an annuity rather than as a single winner’s cheque.

They also breathe new life into the Order of Merit. No more need to go and cash in on appearance money from places like Singapore as Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, Angel Cabrera and Darren Clarke did in preference to playing the Volvo Masters.

Another welcome development is that from 2010 the European season will run from January to November, with a specific off-season.
Does it mean Europe’s biggest stars will be more likely to base themselves on their home tour? To a degree, but not massively, and Rose showed why by winning the Order of Merit competing in just 12 tournaments.

Will it attract more top Americans, like Tiger Woods? No. He has shown no interest in taking up European Tour membership and that would be a pre-requisite to make him eligible to compete for these new prizes.

Other Americans may be tempted, but would have to overcome their phobia about crossing their own borders.

David Spencer, chief executive of Leisurecorp and Jumeirah Golf Estates, described the new developments as “something very, very special.”

“You’ll see the name Jumeirah Golf Estates; you’ll see the name Dubai World Championship and you’ll see the name Race to Dubai throughout a host of European Tour events.

“Of course, the players are a key part of this, and one of the first relationship structures that we put together was the sponsorship of the physio truck for the players. We want to do a lot of this for the players. We want Jumeirah Golf Estates and the international headquarters of The European Tour to be a welcoming experience for the players, and that was driving our ambition here. It wasn’t just all about – ‘let’s make the world’s biggest golf tournament’ – we have a lot more than that.

“Most excitingly for us, and perhaps the pedigree of Leisurecorp, is the creation of a global property company together with the European Tour to extend golf into emerging markets and keep capitalising on the excitement of golf, particularly in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We see it as just a burgeoning industry in this region.”