RIYADH, 26 October 2007 — Keen to be on a par with the rest of the more developed golf countries in the region, Saudi Arabia hosts the 28th Pan-Arab Golf Championship which was scheduled next month but moved to January to give way to the OPEC meeeting here.

Golf will be in the spotlight early next year when the best amateur golfers in the Arab world do battle in this major event on the Arab Golf Federation calendar.

By hosting the championship, an individual and team competition, the Kingdom hopes to raise the profile of the Saudi game and show the world the country is capable of organizing an event of this magnitude, according to Saudi Golf Committee President Khaled Abunayyan.

Fourteen member-countries of the AGF are participating in the tournament at the majestic Dirab Golf Club, the only PGA certified course in the country that has undergone major changes in time for the competition. Abunayyan is optimistic this event would help steer the future of Saudi golf in the right path and encourage more Saudis to take up the game.

The tournament, according to Abunayyan, would showcase the Kingdom’s vibrant golfing scene to a worldwide audience.

“Its important to benefit from the experiences of other countries which effectively sold itself as a premier golfing and tourism destination in the region,” Abunayyan said.

Abunayyan believes that this can only be achieved with a massive media exposure and that is why the SGC has launched a media campaign to promote the game of golf in the Kingdom.

Although golf has a long history in the country Saudis seemed to have little or no knowledge of the game in contrast to the thousands of expatriates who enjoy the gentleman’s sport on both all-grass and sand courses.

That golf seems to lack an appeal to a great majority of sport-minded Saudis is the challenge facing the SGC. The reasons vary. Ask any Saudi and, chances are, he wouldn’t know that SGC exists.

Saudi Golf Beginnings

American oil workers who play golf brought their favorite pastime in the Kingdom in the late 1940s. To be able to play they had to make their own makeshift golf course on a vast tract of land in Dhahran in the Eastern Province, giving birth to the first golf club in the Kingdom, Aramco Golf Club. Using heavy equipment these early golfers transformed the once featureless patch into a golf course. For the greens or putting surface they compacted the mixed sand and oil they appropriately call “browns”. Each player carry with them Astroturf to put under the ball and hit their shots on the fairways. Organized tournaments were held and membership at Aramco steadily grew. Fifteen Saudis who learned the game while caddying for the expatriate golfers in Dhahran back in the 60s represented the Saudi golf pioneers. Many have died and some are still active in the game including Hadr Alkhaldi and Ali Belhareth, now the captain of the Saudi national team.

Fast Forward to the Present

Today Saudi Arabia has 16 golf courses with Dirab Golf Club and Rolling Hills Golf Club going on to become the country’s premier 18-hole all-grass championship courses. In addition to the grass course which opened in 2004 Aramco maintains its sand course, Rolling Hills Golf and Country Club. The other existing sand courses in the Eastern Province are Ain Nakhl Golf Club in Abqaiq, Bayside Golf Club in old Abqaiq Road, Surf Side Golf Club in Ras Tanura, Wadi Al-Saeed Golf Club in Udhailliyah and Whispering Sands in Jubail. In Riyadh there are five all-grass courses namely Dirab Golf Club, Riyadh Golf Course, Riyadh Intercontinental Golf Club, Reef Golf Club and Arizona. Two sand courses, RGC and Riyadh Desert Golf Club, are still being maintained. Jeddah used to have its own grass course at Durrat Al-Arous, which shut down operations five years ago. Fortunately for Jeddah golf enthusiasts the Desert Lakes Golf Club near the airport was saved from being torn down by the owners of the land on which the sand course was built, making way for improvements instead in the last quarter of 2006.

The amount of time it takes to finish a round (4 hours at least), let alone the money for membership, is one reason why Saudis stay away from the game. Another is that golf clubs’ locations are not easily accessible although Intercon is in the heart of the city.

Peter Waddel, executive director at BAE Systems, which administers the Saudi-British Sport Cooperation Program, told Arab News the reason why the Saudi public has limited information about various sports except for soccer is because they get introduced to only soccer at schools. Therefore, the Kingdom was able to achieve a lot in terms of football but hardly anything in other sports, he said.

But Waddel said drumming up interest in golf among local youths would help SGC discover many talents in future and encourage businessmen to invest in this sport.

Muhammad Al-Mojil, a well-known Saudi businessman and head of the Tourism Committee at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said businessmen are reluctant to sponsor or invest in golf because of its limited fans.

There is a need to first increase awareness about this sport, then businessmen will be encouraged to invest their money in sponsoring golf competitions, he said.

Saudi Golf Committee has been working to improve relations with the local Arabic press as part of its efforts to promote golf in the Kingdom. Abunayyan lamented the lack of media support, citing the 10th Annual GCC Championship which the Kingdom hosted in 2002 as an example.

Kingdom No. 1 golfer Othman Almulla said it’s a crying shame that foreign media was following his performance in the Dubai Desert Classic, a European Tour event, early this year and not a single Saudi media representative bothered to cover. Othman was the first Saudi and youngest Arab to qualify to play in the Dubai Classic. Dr. Hafez Almadlej, Saudi columnist and a member of the Saudi Football Federation, commented about why Saudi press in particular tends to be indifferent to golf and other sports other than soccer. He said this is due to many reasons, chief of which, is that Saudi sport reporters respond to what type of sport the public is keen to watch or read about. “Apparently soccer remains the only and the most attractive sport to most of our population,” he said.

Saudi Golf on the Upswing

Since the Saudi Golf Committee was formed in 1999, Abunayyan said they have made great strides in the promotion of golf in the Kingdom. In addition to the events in the Gulf and Arab levels, the country participated in an international tournament in 2002 in Malaysia and last year sent a team to the World Amateur Golf Championship, where 45 countries entered, in South Africa. Of course, Othman’s resounding victory in the 2007 Red Sea and Pan Arab Amateur Golf Championship at Soma Bay Cascades Golf Club in Egypt in July was a high-water mark in the history of Saudi golf.

To attract as many youngsters as possible and develop a talent pool from which will come future members of the national team, Dirab has opened a golf academy in Riyadh.

“The number of junior players are increasing. We started with 20 players and today we have much more,” said Abunayyan. He added besides the academy a junior division has been included in the monthly competitions at Dirab. To the untrained eye, golf would seem like a phantom sport in Saudi Arabia but the fact is that it is one of the fastest growing sports in these parts. Who knows, the next golf boom after the UAE in the region could be Saudi Arabia.