The ground-breaking event will take place when the long hot summer ends in November as part of the yearlong celebrations of the newspaper’s 35th year anniversary.

To get the ball rolling, Arab News Cup Project Director Hatem Ghorbal traveled to Riyadh last week to discuss preparations for the tournament with Bouchaib El Jadiani, DGCC golf manager.

“The discussion was perfect. We will have to do it (Arab News Cup),” said Ghorbal of the initial meeting at the DGCC clubhouse.

“This is gonna be a major tournament. We will have top golfers from the Gulf come down to Riyadh and play,” El Jadiani said excitedly during the interview from Riyadh.

El Jadiani said he will send out invitations to GCC golfers like Nasser Yacoub from Bahrain and Khaled Yousef from the UAE, among others, at least one month before the tournament which is set for Nov. 24-26.

Along with rugby, golf was tossed into the picture when events were being planned as early as January for the paper’s 35th year anniversary celebrations. Arab News Editor in Chief Khaled Almaeena embraced the idea, taking cognizance of the fact that golf and rugby are growing in popularity in the Kingdom.

Khaled Abunayyan, Dirab golf course owner and president of the Saudi Golf Federation, was most gracious in allowing the use of facilities at the club.

“I’m glad that Arab News took the initiative to do this tournament. Arab News from the beginning is one of the most important supporters of golf in the Kingdom and we thank them for always taking the lead in getting golf information across to the public,” Abunayyan said.

“It’s a pleasure for us at Dirab to be the host for this tournament. We would like this to be very successful. And we’re looking forward to having this tournament on a yearly basis,” he added.

This joint venture brings into focus the role of Arab News in helping to raise the sport’s profile in the region. From 2005 up to the present, golf club membership at Dirab and elsewhere in Riyadh has been witnessing a spike so much so that getting tee times during the weekends could be a problem. Consider this: From 5:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at weekends the course is fully booked with the tee times at 15-minute intervals.

2005 was the year Arab News was invited to cover the 26th Pan Arab Golf Championship in Cairo, Egypt on Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, and for which the paper earned a citation from the General Presidency of Youth Welfare and Dirab Golf Club for its excellent coverage.

Arab News was likewise in the thick of things when in 2008 Dirab Golf Club and Riyadh Golf Club hosted the 27th Pan Arab Championship and GCC Golf Championship, which were held within three months of each other.

In between, Arab News had been covering local tournaments across the Kingdom, most of them in Riyadh, which by the very nature of it having the largest golfer population is considered the hotbed of golf in the country.

Indeed, Arab News is a big supporter and partner of stakeholders in the promotion of golf in Saudi Arabia.