The Race to Dubai

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Jared and I had the opportunity to go to the Dubai World Championship Golf Tournament aka "The Race to Dubai." I was very excited because it is a huge tournament and actually the last tournament of the European Tour Season (comparable to the Tour Championship in the PGA Tour... I think). I had never been to a big golf tournament before and was so excited to get to see all the big European golfers (some of who I had actually heard of..) Rory McIlroy, Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, and Sergio Garcia.

It was a four day tournament and we went for the third day (tickets were free though, so we could have gone all four days, but obviously had to work, etc, and I also thought that one day of golf was probably enough for me). We were fairly under the weather from the night before (our friend Ebi got a private room at a bar called Left Bank in Souq Al Bahar with tons of apps and bottles of liquor to celebrate his birthday), so we didn't get as early of a start as we hoped. We got to the tournament about 2pm, which was actually great because all the leaders were on Hole 10 by the time we got there and so we were able to see their second nine, but not have to be there all day (you can see my interest level in the tournament out was quite high... now, if Tiger was playing on the other hand, I might have demanded we get there early).

So when we first got to the tournament we decided to chase the leaders around for awhile and walk from hole to hole. The course was so pretty and some of the more centrally located greens were set up with couches and bean bags for people to picnic and luxuriate on the course (which Jared loved... bean bags are big here for some reason). Then, after we got sick of running around the course we strategically placed ourselves by the green to Hole 17 (the island green seen below) at a bar they had set up on the course and had a beer while we waited for all the leaders/famous golfers to pass through and then were able to follow them to 18. The whole experience was a lot of fun and definitely worthwhile... It kind of turned me on to professional golf, although I actually think it might be more fun to watch on tv (because you know what's going on... it's easy to get distracted and just watch the guys holding up the 'Quiet' sign when you're there)... Lots of fun though and I'd definitely go again!

Hole 18 Green..

The Island Green, Hole 17

Random Hole.. I can't remember which, such a pretty course though, and weird because it's literally in the middle of the desert so everything had to be brought in and built up from the sand.