Editor’s Letter
Happy New Year! KENT GRAY kent.gray@motivate.ae • Twitter: @KentGrayGolf / @GolfDigestME
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preps to bring down the curtain on the 2021 Race to Dubai, at Golf Digest Middle East we can’t help getting ahead of ourselves. While the pandemic, and no doubt a carefully considered PR strategy, has thus far prevented the European Tour from confirming its complete 2022 schedule, we have at least been drip-fed the early season Desert Swing. The new-look Middle East panorama is sumptuous. But first, a little scene-setter. Saudi Arabia’s departure for Asia in a historic 10-year deal is pivotal to the European Tour’s early 2022 narrative. The Saudi International will now be the season opening, $5 million “flagship” event of a revived Asian Tour
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schedule which is set to have wider implications for the European Tour once it is finally released. Wentworth have retorted by slotting the new $2 million Ras Al Khaimah Championship into the hole vacated by Saudi, while also bolstering the region’s trailblazing Dubai Desert Classic. The welcome arrival of Al Hamra Golf Club to the big time will come after backto-back Rolex Series events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to open the calendar year. A new sponsor for the Desert Classic and the upgrade to one of the ET’s premier $8 million events should be a boon for Dubai fans in terms of the event’s star pulling power. Arguably the most significant development though is the shift of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship from Abu Dhabi Golf
Club to Yas Links. Of all the new Desert Swing developments, we’re most excited about seeing Kyle Phillips’ architectural gem beamed to television audiences around the globe, letting the rest of the world in on one of the game’s best kept secrets despite Yas Links’ ranking inside the top half of Golf Digest’s top-100 courses (outside the U.S.). Yas slipped down Golf Digest Middle East’s own Top 10 Courses of the Middle Ranking in 2020, to third place behind the Majlis and Al Mouj. The fall was controversial and mostly down to a decline in conditioning due to water challenges. But the agronomy team have worked wonders getting the desert-links layout back to its pristine former self. “I am very proud of our team who have been hard at work over the past two years to successfully deliver a series of extensive on-course improvements at Yas Links Abu Dhabi,” said Troon International President Mark Chapleski. “As the first true links style course in the Middle East, its current playability is secPhotograph by Kevin Murray
