ABU DHABI // Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter may have had an indifferent 2015, but both remain confident of making Europe’s Ryder Cup team later this year.
The pair led Europe to an easy victory last week against Asia in the EurAsia Cup, and the new captain Darren Clarke was especially pleased with the experience and nous they brought to a young side.
So poor was their form in 2015, they made it to the side as captain’s picks. Westwood had just one top-10 finish in 15 US PGA Tour events, while Poulter, after a good start, failed to make the cut at the US and British opens.
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Poulter slid down the rankings and is outside the top 50, which affects his chances of making the major tournaments and getting the points to move into Ryder Cup contention.
Not that “Mr Ryder Cup”, as Poulter is known, is in doubt.
Asked if he was confident of making the team, his response as he prepares to take part in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship was emphatic: “Yes.”
He did acknowledge the possibility, however, that a lot can happen between now and September and despite a Ryder Cup record of 13 points in 18 matches and Clarke’s words, he was not yet a shoo-in.
“Darren is going to take the best team to Hazeltine” Minneapolis, where the next Ryder Cup takes place, “irrespective of who he has to leave off that team,” Poulter said.
“If he has got to leave me and Lee off the team, he is going to leave me and Lee off the team. He’s got to take the best guys that he thinks can win that trophy. I know from where I stand as a player, I need to make the team. I don’t want to be a pick.”
Westwood’s form has shown signs of returning with a runners-up finish at the Thailand Open in December and going unbeaten in the EurAsia Cup.
“I know I need to play better,” he said.
“I‘ve worked hard on my putting and changed my style slightly. I’m rolling a few more putts in. Last week I rolled more putts in, that’s been lacking from my game and I feel pretty good on the long game. So I’m quite confident at the start of this year.”
Westwood, who thinks a “majority” of those who played last week will be in the Ryder Cup side, also has a personal record to strive for in what would be his 10th Ryder Cup.
He is just two behind Nick Faldo’s record for the all-time points leader.
“Obviously you want as many records as you can get,” he said.
“When you consider all the great players who have played Ryder Cup for Europe, I passed Seve [Ballesteros] at the last one and have Nick in front of me. It’d be great to get to the top of the list.
“It’s always about the team performances but you do look at individual records as well with pride.”
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
French Touch
Carla Bruni
(Verve)
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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.”
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