ABU DHABI //Retief Goosen, the two-time US Open winner, will join Lee Westwood, the world No 1, and Graeme McDowell, the current US Open champion, at the Emirates Airline Invitational at the Yas Links Golf Club on Monday, organisers said yesterday.
The participation of Goosen, the South African - as well as that of Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland and the 17-year-old Italian prodigy Matteo Manassero - was confirmed for the fifth edition of the event.
The one-day charity tournament previously known as the Abdullah al Naboodah Invitational, bills itself as the world's leading Pro-Am event and will feature 52 professionals linking up with an equal number of amateurs to test the rugged course built across the road from Ferrari World.
Among the amateurs expected to play the Gulf's first links-style course are the former footballers Ruud Gullit, the 1987 World Player of the Year; Jamie Redknapp and David O'Leary; as well as the retired England cricketers Michael Vaughan and Allan Lamb.
The Invitational moves to Abu Dhabi after four years in Dubai, two at the Four Seasons course and two at Dubai Creek.
Al Naboodah, still the tournament host as well as the chairman of the Al Ahli football team, said he knew he wanted to stage the invitational event at Yas Links even before the Kyle Phillips-designed course was finished.
He said he toured the links with Chris White, the general manager, when only a few holes were completed, last year, and was impressed. "I was always pushing Chris, 'When are you going to finish?' It's a great venue. I've always been a fan of Kyle Phillips's designs and played some of them and enjoyed the playability of them.
"When I came here, I thought, 'This is the right place.' I loved the sea around us and the mangroves, and the whole setting is brilliant."
Phillips, the South African designer, is credited with taking a stretch of flat, desert scrub fronting an arm of the Gulf and turning it into a rolling layout with wide fairways, deep bunkers and big, sloped greens reminiscent of thelandscape from seaside Scotland.
Yas Island will never generate weather as raw as St Andrews, but it would appear to be a greater challenge than a typical desert course.
"The other thing special about the course is the wind," al Naboodah said as a zephyr blew through an outdoor briefing. "With this flat sea, with the shamal winds, it's very tricky to handle this golf course with high winds."
He smiled and added: "I hope we have high winds on Monday that keep the players from getting course records."
Al Naboodah teamed with Westwood to win the event last year, and will be paired with the Englishman again.
"As defending champions, I thought we need to defend our title," al Naboodah said.
Other professionals who will take part in the event include Ross Fisher, Rhys Davies, Henrik Stenson, Thongchai Jaidee and Paul Lawrie, the Scotsman who won the 1999 British Open.
The event this year takes on Emirates as the title sponsor. Nadim Lahad, the Emirates manager for Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, said: "This event is renowned for attracting a world-class field with leading golfers and celebrities. It already has a reputation as one of the most prestigious in the world, and we look forward to taking it further."
The event kicks off the European Tour's 2011 Desert Swing, which includes the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in Abu Dhabi beginning next Thursday, followed by events in Bahrain, Qatar and Dubai, the latter from February 10-13.
The prize purse for the professonals is US$500,000 (Dh1.83 million). The top four will donate half of their winnings, $150,000 in total, to charities of their choice.
Charities will benefit from funds raised at the gala banquet on Monday night. According to organisers, more than Dh2m was raised in the first four years of the event.
Spectators will not be charged admission to see the event, and can register for free tickets at emiratesairlineinvitational.com.
poberjuerge@thenational.ae
Schedule
When: Monday
Where: Yas Links Golf Club
Who: Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell, Retief Goosen among 52 professionals; Ruud Gullit, Jamie Redknapp and Michael Vaughan among 52 amateurs.
Format: Four-ball, best two from four
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
- The Milky Bar white chocolate Egg Hunt Pack contains eight eggs at 7.7g of sugar per egg
- The Cadbury Creme Egg contains 26g of sugar per 40g egg
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
The%20specs
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RESULTS
Argentina 4 Haiti 0
Peru 2 Scotland 0
Panama 0 Northern Ireland 0
