Dubai's dreams are coming true

When Mark James, of England, won the inaugural Dubai Desert Classic in 1989, many wouldn't have imagined that the city would play an integral part in golfing history.

Dubai's transition from golfing outpost to PGA European Tour capital is complete, and the emirate can have a growing influence on the game in the years ahead. When you look at all the spectacular developments that have taken place there in recent years, and the new projects now under way, the mind boggles at what might come next. That's certainly true in the golfing world following the official launch of the Race to Dubai at Turnberry earlier this week. It meant that, for the second time inside a month, following Abu Dhabi's acquisition of Manchester City, the UAE has been dominating the international sports headlines.

Without doubt, Leisurecorp, Turnberry's new owners, have pulled off a masterstroke in stamping Dubai's name indelibly on the European Tour and creating a US$20million (Dh73.4m) World Championship climax at Greg Norman's Earth course at Jumeirah Golf Estates. Dubai is the talk of the golfing world, and over the next few years it could do for European golf what Tiger Woods has done for the game in the US.

Already, many of the game's biggest names, including Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington and Vijay Singh, are among those now leaning towards more appearances in Europe in order to qualify for the Race to Dubai's lucrative grand finale. We can also expect a lot of interest from rising stars like Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan and Camilo Villegas, and top Australian players such as Adam Scott, Aaron Baddeley, Stuart Appleby, Robert Allenby, to name a few.

As they do in America at the thought of the Tiger hitting town, tournament sponsors on the other side of the Atlantic are rubbing their hands with glee. Facing a struggle to be ready to return from knee surgery in time to defend his Accenture Match Play Championship next February, amid suggestions that the Masters in April is a more realistic target, Mr Woods must be watching it all with great interest.

More than any other golfer alive, he will appreciate what is happening in Dubai, where a relationship built on his two Desert Classic victories is being developed impressively by the first golf course anywhere in the world to carry his name. Looking back on Dubai's emergence as a major force in golf, which has run parallel with the city's growth into the international hub it is today, I find myself rewinding back to my first visit in 1989 to play in the inaugural Desert Classic.

Driving out past the World Trade Centre, the only other buildings I can remember between there and the Emirates Golf Club were the Metropolitan Hotel on the one side and the Chicago Beach Hotel on the other. There was a now famous story going round that Sheikh Mohammed had been watching televised horseracing from Doncaster one day when he spotted a golf course in the middle of the track, and it was suggested to him that this was a game that could put Dubai on the map.

The Emirates Golf Club was built in two years, and officially opened when Sam Torrance and Howard Clarke teamed up to play Rodger Davis and Graham Marsh in an East v West challenge match. At the end, Rodger praised the course as world class, but said he didn't know where in the world they'd find a professional tournament to host there. It wasn't recognised at the time, but this was Dubai inviting the PGA European Tour to go global, a process which led to the first Desert Classic just 12 months later, and now sees the Tour bringing its headquarters, and its showpiece event, the richest in the world, to Dubai.

But it's not only Dubai that will benefit. The Tour already has some other fantastic events, and I've always thought that one of them, the PGA Championship at Wentworth, had the potential to become golf's fifth major. In the US, they talk a lot about the Players' Championship being the leading candidate for elevation to major status. But Wentworth could match Sawgrass in that department, especially if the Race to Dubai starts luring top American players to Surrey.

While players will need to play in 12 events on the European Tour next year to earn membership - an increase of one - and at least two of them must be on continental Europe, that won't inconvenience the likes of Mickelson, Garcia, Harrington, Singh and Co. With the four majors and three World Championship events combining to give the world's top-50 players seven European events, and some of them already regulars in the Scottish Open, that only leaves four more tournaments, including the end of season climax in Dubai, to slot into their calendar.

The probability is that we're going to be seeing more tournaments featuring the top American and European players going head to head, which can only be good for golf in Europe, and the game worldwide. When my good friend Mark James, the former European Ryder Cup captain, was invited to speak to the crowd after becoming the first Desert Classic champion in Dubai 19 years ago, he thanked the organisers for a great event.

He thanked the course superintendant for producing a magnificent, manicured course, with fantastic practice facilities. He praised the hotel where he'd stayed that week. Being a good talker, "Jesse" went on to thank quite a few more people for making it such a memorable week for the Tour. Then, looking up at a cloudless blue sky, and having the sense of humour that he does, he finished of by saying: "I'd better go now - it looks like rain."

There have been few clouds on the horizon for golf in Dubai since then, and while we couldn't have imagined, back in 1989, what it would all lead to, deep down I think most of us knew this really was the start of something special. The eyes of the golfing world are on Dubai. Exciting times indeed. (Philip Parkin, a former Tour player in Europe and the US, is a world-class golf coach now based in Florida, and a regular member of the golf commentary team for the BBC, European Tour Productions, Setanta Sports and The Golf Channel)