Present charms

TV presenter Rishi Persad gets

business at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic

By Matt Smith

Those of you who follow sport on TV may spot a familiar face around the grounds at Emirates Golf Club this weekend.

Having graced the small screen presenting and reporting on a wide range of sports for the likes of the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 in the UK, Rishi Persad is on MC and ceremony duties this week at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. And it has been quite a journey to the Middle East — from the Caribbean to Europe and beyond.

“I started broadcasting in 2002 and joined the BBC not long after, primarily on horse racing which is the sport I grew up in the Caribbean on the island of Trinidad,” Persad said in Dubai.

Cricket and racing were the two sports I followed as a kid. Then I came to the UK for school and I took up golf in my late twenties.

“I wasn’t bad at cricket so I thought I would be able to play golf. However, I soon realised the hard way that they had no correlation whatsoever and I should stick to the microphone.

“I worked away on the racing and some cricket for Channel 4, snooker and Wimbledon, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, so it was a broad spectrum, including covering the horse racing in Dubai for the World Cup.” The chance to cover golf wasn’t long in coming along — and it was quite a baptism of fire.

“My first opportunity in golf was in at the deep end a bit as it was at the Ryder Cup at Medinah, where Europe staged that amazing win over the US,” Parsad said. “When I was growing up in Trinidad, my dad hated golf and, as a consequence, I never took an interest in playing it. I watched it on TV, watching the Masters on the BBC always heralded the start of summer, so I became the avid viewer. Then came the opportunity at Medinah in 2012, and it went OK and I got the gig to go to the Masters the following year, which was famous for that Tiger Woods drop and the furore about whether it was a legal drop. Speaking to Tiger for the first time that weekend was quite an introduction!

“The Open and more Ryder Cups followed and I began to be associated with golf as much as I was with cricket and racing.”

Now the Dubai Desert Classic can be added to the CV, not that this is Persad’s first time at EGC.

“Since coming out to Dubai for the first time in 2003 to cover the racing World Cup, it is amazing to see how it has all changed, from the growth of the World Cup week itself — from Nad Al Sheba to the stunning Meydan Racecourse with its hotel and golf course — to the city and obviously the golfing scene as well,” he said.

“I fell in love with it all the first year I came over. I have been here [the Desert Classic] many times before as a guest and visitor, coming out in the lead up to the Dubai World Cup, I got quite a few chances to pop along to the golf here.

“I find it easier to walk the course here to follow the game — it is great to cut across to quickly get to the relevant hole.”

And with presentation duties to fulfil, Persad has an extended stay in the UAE with the tournament now finishing on Monday.

“I have to stay on,” he laughed. “An extra night in the hotel and the unique first Monday finish. The two things that have struck me about this week is the je ne c’est quoi attitude of everyone involved here; the attitude that they will do whatever it takes to get it done. No one has ever sounded panicked, and they were saying: ‘We will get it done.’ I believe that could be a motto for Dubai as a whole. The attitude is admirable.”

Persad himself conveyed the same attitude as he headed off for presentation duties on the first tee and’getting it done’ for the Monday finish.