TRENDING DP World has been a close partner of the European Tour for close to a decade and the rebranding of the historic organisation first founded in 1972 to the DP World makes sense considering the global arena the professionals compete in these days. Especially when you look at the 2022 schedule and see that many tournaments are staged outside Europe. So, DP World was not just a great financial partner but have equally answered the geographical confusion sometimes associated with the European Tour. We caught up with Abdullah Bin Damithan, CEO & Managing Director of DP World UAE & Jafza, to know more about the partnership and to find out a little bit about his own golf game.
Europe’s new WORLD REACH
When do you get chance to play? We have customers from all over the world and Ienjoy playing with them when I get the time. It’s fun and golf gives you a lot of quality time to break the ice, talk business and enjoy yourself. Lately with the pandemic and my role as the CEO, I haven’t had as many opportunities as I’ve had in the past to play, but hopefully I will be able to get out more in 2022. Where do you play locally? I have played almost every course in Dubai – Jumeirah Golf Estates, Dubai Creek, Emirates Golf Club, Al Badia when it was still operational. I enjoy playing everywhere, not just in Dubai but around the world. With DP World sponsoring the Tour, at what stage did you shift from being the title sponsor of the season ending event and move to re-name the Tour itself? DP World has been a partner with the Eurpean Tour for the last decade, so it was not new relationship. The opportunity for us, and our commitment to grow the game and elevate it, and with our new branding, it was a great match. A global port operator and a global championship coming together as a partner, it was the ideal time. So we are not new to each other, and now it is taking our relationship one level higher. The schedule for 2022 has been announced early and events in Japan and the pairing with the PGA Tour are welcome additions. Was Japan something that you looked at as a region to expand into? Yes and in addition to Japan there are other destinations we looked at as well. We aim to take the Tour further to places like Japan or new destinations that bring value to the game and DP World.
