The sight of Emirates Golf Club, unveiled to United States golfers in 1989, was startling. An aerial view showed a block of green grass amidst a wide swath of barren desert with the Persian Gulf on the horizon. American golfers got a glimpse via pictures and highlights of this Middle East-North Africa course that seemed like a mirage. Aside from geography majors, who even knew where Dubai was situated on the globe?
“It stuck out as an amazing miracle in the desert,” said Englishman Chris May, the chief executive officer of Dubai Golf and a 27-year Dubai resident. “Here was a green square mile of land in the desert with perfect conditions. Back in Europe it was rainy and cold. So, people watched [the European Tour broadcast] just to see this warm place. There’s no doubt that first event [in 1989] put Dubai and the course on the map.”
Emirates Golf Club, the site of that first Dubai Desert Classic, was the first grass golf course in the Middle East and hosted the first European Tour tournament outside continental Europe. Mark James won the event, entitled the Karl Litten Desert Classic after the American golf course architect who designed the club. The tournament further gained the attention of the golf world when it was the first live event shown on The Golf Channel when that network launched in January 1995.
The warm climate also was a game changer, a similar attraction to when Hawaii and the Western United States’ PGA Tour events offered a television escape for those trapped in winter weather in the Midwest and East. The participation by Seve Ballesteros, Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and four-time Desert Classic winner Rory McIlroy accelerated the appeal.
“Dubai received a lot of publicity just from that photo,” May said. “Saying the ‘Middle East’ has slightly different connotations, especially that is not the safest place. But I can tell you I have lived here for 26 years, and the golf certainly helped changed that perception in Dubai.
“Me being from Europe, wearing a T-shirt outside in February is definitely a plus. There’s also a genuine welcome to visitors in this part of the world. It’s something you don’t experience in many places. Plus, it’s a very safe place. I’ve got a family with two girls, so it’s important to have great schools and a safe environment.”
The growth of golf in the area — located along the Persian Gulf east of Saudi Arabia — has been a boon to what is now the DP World Tour and to the entire region. In the early 1960s, Dubai had just 40,000 residents and has grown to approximately 4 million people with more than 11 million people residing in the United Arab Emirates. Emirates Golf Club was the first of a current 22 golf courses in the UAE.
There are now six DP World Tour tournaments played in the region, beginning Jan. 15 with the Dubai Invitational at Dubai Creek Resort, followed by the Hero Dubai Desert Classic (Jan. 22-25) at Emirates Golf Club, the Bapco Energies Bahrain Championship (Jan. 29-Feb. 1) in nearby Bahrain and the Qatar Masters (Feb. 5-8) in Qatar. The 2026 DP World Tour season concludes with the Abu Dhabi Championship (Nov. 5-8) at Yas Links in Abu Dhabi and the DP World Championship (Nov. 12-15) at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai. Those events combine for a combined purse of $36 million.
The golf courses would seemingly be of the same desert-like characteristics but May said there are differences. First off, all are exquisitely conditioned. Emirates, which recently hosted the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, is a true desert design where the city grew up around the course. Yas Links in Abu Dhabi is rated among the world’s top 100 courses by Golf Digest and has more of a links style where American architect Kyle Phillips, of Kingsbarns, Scotland fame, designed rolling fairways that work past a waterway that leads to the Persian Gulf.
The Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates, designed by Greg Norman, offers more of a parkland feel with great length (up to 7,800 yards from the tips) and large, bright-white sand bunkers. A new course, Discovery Dunes, also opened in late 2025 as the first private community course in Dubai and architect Tom Fazio’s first Middle East course in association with Discovery Land, an American-based
international real estate company.
Golf tourism alone is worth approximately $1 billion annually to the local economy, with a growth rate of at least 5%-6% per year. As a result, the accommodations are world class, with a growing assortment of hotels and amenities, most notably restaurants with highly recognized chefs staking their claim in a new part of the world.
A handful of professional golfers reside in Dubai, led by England’s Tommy Fleetwood. Emirates Airlines has been the main airline carrier since 1985. The top golf market is in Europe, with travelers coming via a six-hour flight predominately from October to spring when the weather is ideal.
The U.S. market is in its infancy but growing with flights from the Eastern U.S. taking approximately 14 hours and 17 hours from the West Coast. Summertime conditions can be desert hot, but the availability of night golf on five courses enables cooler playing conditions. The Dubai Moonlight Classic was a day and night Ladies European Tour event, held on Emirates Golf Club’s Faldo Course, through 2021.
The changes from the original look of Dubai are evident elsewhere today. The raised tee on the short par-4 eighth hole at Emirates Golf Club has long been a photographer’s favorite location. In the late 1980s through the 1990s that view had a backdrop of nothingness, like the aerial shot. Today, the same vantage point from No. 8 offers a view that could be confused with a background of Manhattan, with a skyline of tall buildings and cranes as more construction takes place.
Not far away is the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building at just over one-half mile tall and 163 floors, adjacent to the world’s largest shopping mall. The view from on top allows for the UAE growth to be seen in one fell swoop, all the way from hotels constructed in the Persian Gulf that offer underwater suites and on to seemingly distant other emirates.
It’s another sign that golf and tourism are rapidly progressing at a location that once was a mere mirage.
