With the opening of new courses at Yas and Saadiyat in 2010, Abu Dhabi has laid down its marker as a top golf destination. As in previous years, the venue for the European Tour HSBC Championship is the Abu Dhabi National (Thursday to January 23), but Yas Links stages an exciting hors d’oeuvre on Monday. The No 1 golfer in the world, Lee Westwood, and the US Open champion, Graeme McDowell, head a line up of tour professionals for the invitational Pro-Am hosted by the Dubai entrepreneur Abdullah Al Naboodah. Half the Dh1.8 million purse will go to local charities and half to charities chosen by the winning professionals. Even if you’re invited, you won’t beat these guys, but you can join them at home and on other iconic courses around the world.
2. Yas Links, Yas Island, Abu Dhabi
In golf’s rich global pageant, links status is the ultimate accolade but imitators in distant lands rarely achieve the real deal. Key ingredients are sand, sea, “natural” landscaping and an absence of intrusive real estate. Site selection and investment can supply the first three, but the fourth is harder in a necessarily commercial climate. Opened last March, Yas Links are within sight of the F1 Circuit and Ferrari World but there are no fairway villas. Blazing sun insists this is not Scotland, but walking hard past fairways, looking for errant balls in hairy rough and missing putts on huge greens provides a traditional ambiance. The American architect Kyle Phillips, who established gilt-edged links credentials with Kingsbarns, 10km from St Andrews, has worked a similar magic on a course acclaimed as “the best in the Middle East” by Golf Course Architecture magazine.
Green fees: October 1 to May 31 – Dh650 Sunday to Thursday, Dh799 Friday to Saturday. June 1 to September 30 – Dh399 Sunday-Thursday, Dh499 Friday to Saturday. Prices include cart and range balls. Call 2 810 7777 or visit www.yaslinks.com
January 2011
thenational.ae
