UP TO THE CHALLENGE

this morning to suspend play.

“Matthew Perry, the Golf Course Superintendent, and his team did a fantastic job, and it was quite an incredible effort to get the golf course ready.

They say these things are sent to try us, and the course management team at Emirates Golf Club were certainly pushed hard by Mother Nature to get the Majlis Course in playable tournament-standard.

Battered by heavy rain since Wednesday, the course was still too wet by Thursday morning and organisers were forced to delay the start of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic while Emirates Golf Club Course Superintendent Matt Perry and his team worked tirelessly through the night to get the famous Majlis Course back on track, with play beginning at 1.15pm yesterday.

While the likes of Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry played a waiting game to get on the first tee at the DP World Tour Rolex Series event, with $9 million on the line, it was all systems go for Perry and the logistics teams as they plotted the best course of action to get the stars on the fairways.

“We had a lot of rain yesterday afternoon so the first decision that was made was to minimise the number of people on site by playing behind closed doors, including closing hospitality,” said Simon Corkill, Tournament Executive Director. “This decision was taken last night for the safety of everybody.

“From yesterday afternoon until 6am Thursday we had about 40 millimetres of rain, which affected the playing surfaces around the golf course. So, we took the decision very early

“It’s a huge team effort when you are faced with a situation like this, everybody from the DP World Tour team, Falcon and Associates, the staff at Emirates Golf Club, we’re all pulling together to focus on the key areas that need to be addressed and what we need to do next. I think we did really well to play today, so it’s a very positive day in that respect.”

Mike Stewart, DP World Tour Tournament Director for the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, added: “The caIl was going to be very hard for large numbers of people to reach the venue after heavy rain, which affected the playing surfaces and caused flooding around the golf course, access roads, and Dubai in general. So, we took the decision very early this morning to suspend play.

“The biggest issues from the golf club’s perspective were the bunkers and some of the waste areas which had flooded really badly, so they had to get those bunkers pumped out. Most of the waste areas were pumped out, also pushing water off greens, pushing water off fairways. We had a team of about a hundred people working on this and that took several hours. On top of that, the team had to do the usual prep of cutting the tees, cutting fairways, cutting greens, cutting aprons, cutting new holes, all the regular daily tournament preparation. Matthew and his team did an amazing job.”