Desert Miracle

One of my earliest golfing memories was watching my father hack his way around the sand course at the Dubai Country Club. The year was 1986 and this was the extent of this tiny emirate’s golf: nine holes crudely shaped out of the desert scrub with no grass. My father had to carry around an astroturf mat to hit the ball off before sweeping the ‘browns’—a peculiar mixture of compacted sand and oil that made for greens—once he’d holed out. In those halcyon days, the club was just another expatriate hangout where mad dogs and Englishmen would play a quick round under a blazing noon day sun before retiring to the verandah for an afternoon spent in a gin and tonic-induced haze.

            The Dubai Country Club is no more, which is probably just as well. The novelty of playing sand golf soon wears thin, and the reflection of the sun’s rays off what is essentially one enormous bunker makes playing sand courses downright unbearable. Give me Carnoustie in December—with its artic winds, driving sleet and frozen putting surfaces—anytime. But even before its demise, very few travellers made their way to Dubai Country Club because the city has evolved into the golf capital of the Middle East, and tourists are now spoiled with choices of first-class courses to play.