The International Golf Federation announced that the Emirates Golf Federation had edged a Singapore Golf Association bid to host the 32nd Eisenhower Trophy (men) and 31st Espirito Santo Trophy (women) following a vote at their biennial meeting in Lausanne on Tuesday.

It will be the first time the Middle East has held the blue-ribbon world championships which have run since 1958 and have included up to 72 teams competing over 72 holes of strokeplay. Each country fields teams of two or three with the two best scores counting in each round.

The Greg Norman-designed Fire course at JGE will host both tournaments in 2023 which will be the first to be held in an odd year to avoid a same-year conflict with future Summer Olympic Games. It will also be the first with a “reduced scope” of one golf course and a minimum of 36 teams. That change was approved at the IGF’s 2018 biennial meeting to deduce the cost and complexity of hosting the championship at two courses.

The 2020 Eisenhower and Espirito Championships, originally scheduled for Hong Kong but moved to Singapore due to civil unrest in the former, have since been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, the World Amateur Team Championships will in consecutive years to affect the change with the next edition in 2022 scheduled for two courses near Paris, the men playing the 2018 Ryder Cup venue Le Golf National and the women Golf de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche.

The win is a coup for the EGF and a boon for JGE which hosts the European Tour’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship on its Earth layout each Nov. This year’s Race to Dubai decider has been pushed out to Dec. 10-13 courtesy of the COVID-19.

The EGF paid tribute to Dubai Golf (who manage JGE) and Falcon and Associates for a “lot of hard work” in securing the world championships for Dubai.

“It is an honour for the United Arab Emirates and the Emirates Golf Federation to win the election for the 2023 World Amateur Team Championships,” said H.E. Shaikh Fahim Bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Emirates Golf Federation.

“We would like to thank the International Golf Federation and their team for working tirelessly with us on the bid application. We would also like to thank all of the IGF members for their votes and giving us this opportunity.

“We look forward to welcoming all of the delegates and athletes into the UAE. Golf in the UAE and region is continuing to grow and this event will further push our vision in golf development. We are excited to work with the IGF and our partners in making this championship a successful reality.”

IGF Executive Director Antony Scanlon said both EGF and Singapore had provided “exceptionally strong bid proposals”.

“We greatly appreciate the interest and strong case presented by the Singapore Golf Association. At the same time, the Emirates Golf Federation made a compelling case that resonated with our member organisations and we’re very excited to be holding our first World Amateur Team Championships in the Middle East region,” said Scanlon.

“We look forward to working with the Emirates Golf Federation to deliver a memorable event and experience for the athletes in 2023.”

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Indeed, there will be more moon – and definitely more floodlighting – at the second edition of the OMEGA Dubai Moonlight Classic this year after feedback from players and fans following last year’s change to a Pro-Am format under lights.

In reality, the pros played as few as five of the 54 holes last May under floodlights on the Faldo and found it difficult transitioning between dusk and full darkness at Emirates Golf Club. There will be no such challenges for the 56 pros at the $285,000 event from November 4-6 – they will play two of the three rounds completely under the Faldo’s LED lights.

“The Moonlight Classic was a new initiative last year which was day-night golf. After last year’s inaugural event, we got feedback from the players, feedback from the sponsors and we felt the night elements were good but there wasn’t enough of it,” said tournament director Simon Corkill.

“We’ve got a great concept, great golf course, the Faldo course under lights, let’s really maximise it and tell that story for Dubai. There aren’t many places you can play championship golf under lights on such a wonderful golf course.”

The shift from May to November and to later tee times – alternating 11.30am and 5.30pm shotgun starts in rounds one and two and the final round fully under lights – won’t be the only noticeable change to the Moonlight Classic.

Corkill and the team from Falcon and Associates want the LET event to be a conduit to golf for non-golfers and are introducing a food market as one way to achieve that remit.

“We looked at the event last year and thought, alright, if we are going to really change to a night event, let’s create a reason for people to come to the golf club as well as for the golf,” Corkill said.

“Providing a location and also an activity for friends, family, couples, everyone, to decide to come to Emirates Golf Club, we need to create an attractive proposition so having a night food market, a music element, having a come and try golf experience, is imperative.”

The challenging closing hole on The Faldo course at Emirates Golf Club.

Corkill also hopes regular golfers will take the chance to watch a game with which they are more familiar, notwithstanding potential social distancing and probable health and safety restrictions likely to be in place during the three-day tournament.

“I think it is great to educate everyone in the game of golf and what is so fantastic about the ladies game is people can relate to it. I mean the guys are bombing it so far, you can’t relate to it. The women’s game is excellent and the women players are very accessible as well.”

Corkill is hopeful of having “the top players” from the LET as part of the “intimate” field come November and is also chasing a handful of LPGA Tour stars, pending any COVID-19 travel challenges.

“We’re trying to get two or three marquee players. One reason for the change to the November date is that it is against the LPGA in Japan which is a limited field so we hope to get two to three players, whether they are the top Europeans who play on the LPGA Tour or Americans, we’re certainly looking to get some key, marquee players to headline the event.”

The 13th edition of Dubai’s annual LET stop enjoyed a grandstand finish last May with Spaniard Nuria Iturrios (pictured below) edging Germans Olivia Cowan and Esther Henesleit by a stroke to become the first nighttime winner.

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OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic Tournament director Simon Corkill has confirmed 2019 champion Bryson DeChambeau headlines his most wanted player list for the 32nd edition of the $3.25 million European Tour event, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 28-31.

The 26-year-old Californian captured his sixth PGA Tour win with a brilliant seven-under 65 for a three-stroke victory over Matthew Woolf at the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club overnight.

It continues an extraordinary run for the scientifically reimagined and physically re-engineered Ryder Cupper who is sure to improve from his current position of 10th when the new world rankings are released on Monday (US time). It was DeChambeau’s first victory since his record romp to victory on the Majlis in 2019 and continued his remarkable consistency since the PGA Tour’s return from the coronavirus shutdown; he rattled off  T-3, T-8 and T-6 placings at the Charles Schwab Challenge, the RBC Heritage and Travelers Championship respectively in the lead-up to Detroit and is now up to fourth in the FedEx Cup standings.

DeChambeau’s well documented physical transformation, which has produced increasingly eye-popping distances off the tee and now a win in four straight seasons, has made him the most talked about player in golf. He’s always done things differently and ruffled feathers along his merry way with his mostly open-book methods and once glacial pace of play. And that’s just the ticket for Corkill who is tasked with maintaining the Desert Classic’s own reputation as one of the premier events on what is sure to be a new-look European Tour next year.

Corkill is quietly confident COVID-19 travel restrictions will have eased by Jan. and that DeChambeau’s desire to etch out a reputation as a player who can win around the world will lure the American back to Dubai.

“Bryson is certainly a target for us again. He’s very good for golf,” said Corkill, Executive Tournament Director for Falcon and Associates who also deliver the Dubai Moonlight Classic and Aramco Saudi Ladies International, both LET events.

“He’s obviously been in the headlines a lot the last couple of weeks, obviously playing well. You either love him or hate him but I think he’s fantastic for golf. He’s different, he says what he thinks, he’s a young guy as well so he connects with the younger guys, he talks about a lot of the gaming he plays and that’s the reality for a lot of people. He gets it. I think he’s going to be around for a long time.“

Bryson DeChambeau with the Dallah trophy in 2019.

DeChambeau rewrote the Desert Classic history books with a record score (264,  -24), record final round (64) and record margin (seven strokes over Matt Wallace) en-route to his maiden European Tour win in 2019.

He finished T-8 in defence of the Dallah trophy last year when his physical transformation was taking shape. A dusty closing round of 76 saw him slip down the leaderboard on Sunday but clearly not in Corkill’s estimation.

“The time I spent with him this year, I’ve never seen a player more focused, more dedicated to achieving excellence and good luck to him,” Corkill said.

“Elite sport is decided by the finest margins and if his way is to bulk up, hit the ball much further, get the club speed going up…it’s obviously doing something good for him.

“Even this year he was practicing with a 4½ degree driver at Emirates and constantly coming in saying ‘I’m not quite there, not quite there’ which probably showed in his final round. I think he’s playing a 5 ½ degree driver now and put on another 20 pounds (9kg) …but wow, he’s come out all guns blazing. The proof is in the pudding. He’ll obviously be in contention in the majors this year.”

Corkill remains hopeful of another stellar cast for the Desert Classic despite the rapidly evolving, albeit currently geographically constrained, shape of professional golf.

“We had a fantastic field last year and we still plan to bring in international players as well as the great European Tour players. “It’s definitely still the goal [attracting marquee players],” Corkill said.

“The commitment stage has been pushed back because a lot of the meetings usually happen at the [cancelled] Open Championship. Those are obviously not going to happen now but a lot of managers are saying let’s just get past the PGA Tour end of season, past the FedEx Cup. But everyone is engaged, they want to come. The field will be very strong. It’s just locking people down.

“We’ve got some locked down which we obviously haven’t announced yet but we’ve got at least seven or eight great players that are locked in and if we said right, there’s no one else who is going to play, so be it. We’d still have a good field, not as strong as we obviously want, but if we had to not commit to other players going forward, we’d still have a fantastic field.

“There’s some young players in there that are going to be in the top 10 in the world within a couple of years to be honest.”

Australian Lucas Herbert is the defending OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic champion.

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