Sweeping

It is tournament week for the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, with pristine greens, rolling fairways and challenging rough awaiting the stars of the DP World Tour for the 34th time.

While everything looks picture perfect, the challenges of getting things in just the right condition is no easy task — just ask Emirates Golf Club Course Superintendant Matt Perry, who looks after the Majlis course with his 70-strong team.

“Preparation for this year’s event pretty much started straight away after the end of Viktor Hovland’s victory here last year,” he said.

“We speak to the DP World Tour and look at what works what can be improved: if there any potential for new tee positions, narrowing fairways ... this begins straight away.

“Then we prep the course a lot during the summer with this event in mind. It is a full-on project over the summer months — hard work in the heat — when we do a lot of our coring [a process for aerating the greens and fairways] and other projects around the course. Then once we have overseeded to promote growth of the grass, which we did at the start of December, that’s when we move up a gear and go into real tournament preparation mode.”

Managing the grass on the course is a tricky task to ensure it is prime condition for the competition week, and Perry has it — almost — down to a fine art.

“It is important to get the grass just right, to get the rough up in time and to fertilise at the right time ... do everything to get the course up to the world-class standard that is expected for a tournament like this,” he said, explaining how the course was entirely revamped with new greens in 2021.

“We are a lot further on now than last year where the organic matter was pretty non-existent because they were very new greens — maybe only seven months old — when we held the Desert Classic last year,” Perry added. “So we have had a full summer of growth now. In grass terms, this is not even two years old and is meant to last more than 20 years, so it is in its infancy and will grow over time as we nurture it.”

With this growth comes some pains, especially for the players trying to read tricky putts.

“The grain — the direction the grass grows — has not fully matured yet which the players may struggle with as they may not be sure which way the grass will push the ball,” said Perry. “That will get them thinking as we are not quite there yet with grain direction but it will give them a test.

“With more organic matter, the pitch marks are not exploding out with some turf like they did last year, so I hope the players can all see the improvements in these young greens, but they will still provide a good test.

“We are delighted with how the grass is performing and has recovered after a very busy season — in 2022 we were definitely up on our number of rounds as golf is still booming in the UAE. To get ready for a big tournament at such a busy golf course is a real balancing act as with deciding how much to push the course at certain times — with corporate tournaments and members’ days and the like.”

While the city has seen some gloomy days recently, that is a ray of sunshine to Perry and his team.

“Over the last few weeks, we have had some good rain which was really helpful with the rye grass and also with the greens, as it washes out the salty water and it has kicked on from there. The greens are a vibrant colour now, too, thanks to that extra rain water.”

So, what goes into the final touches just before the gates are open to the public?

“In the week before the competition we close the course to the public and I move my entire team onto the Majlis. We have around 70 in my team and a lot of them work on the Faldo [Course the sister course to the Majlis at EGC]. We move them over to support on the Majlis at this point, so that shows how much work and manpower goes into getting the course to the standard required.

“Now we add the finishing touches — pushing the greens to really get the speed up and have them in the perfect spot for the week.

“I just takes time but we think we have the course exactly where we want it to be.”

Such meticulous care also has its ecological rewards, with fauna and flora thriving at EGC. “We are regularly planting ghaf trees native to this area and I think the national tree of the UAE,” said Perry. “These trees have dotted the fairways since Emirates was first opened and some are pretty huge now. Given that they need very little in the way of water to thrive they really help with water consumption and our sustainability drive.

“There is also a growth over the years in wildlife with desert foxes, herons, cormorants easy to spot. We now get some flamingoes too so it is great to see the environment thrive.”