D ubai
dOWN BuT FAR FROM OuT
There was a time not so long ago when the economy of Dubai in
the United Arab Emirates was sus-
tained by little more than the pearl
divers and the Bedouin who roamed
the desert sands and bred their rac-
ing camels. This was Thomas Gray’s
romantic land where “many a flower
was born to blush unseen and waste
its sweetness on the desert air.”
Then there was oil. Almost in a sin-
gle generation, the flat scrubland and
rust-cultured sand dunes of the des-
ert around the Persian Gulf—the very
stuff of Lawrence of Arabia—became
dotted with oil wells and offshore
production platforms, and in their af-
termath a whole new landscape born
out of an economic explosion.
Virtually overnight, Dubai—one
of the seven Emirates that make up
the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—
turned itself into a fabulous glass,
steel and concrete oasis of luxury;
a dynamic symbol of wealth and
economic power built on the back
MALCOLM CAMPBELL By
of “black gold.” But the vision of
Sheikh Maktoum, the Dubai ruler
who masterminded the plan to turn
this arid desert city/state into a world
financial power and a playground of
the rich and famous, became more of
a mirage as the world collapsed into
economic recession.
Today, hundreds of apartments
and buildings lie empty with no
takers despite collapsing prices;
the giant cranes that built the huge
skyscrapers, the fabulous hotels
and the world’s tallest building,
the Burg Khalifa, stand unmoving
under the desert sun. It’s an all too
potent reminder of how things went
so horribly wrong, and not just in
Dubai, but all over the world.
Yet life goes on there, maybe not
as it did a handful of years ago,
but the fabulous buildings and the
lifestyle are still there. Maybe the
jettiest of the jet set are landing
their Citations elsewhere, or have
them firmly parked in the hanger,
but for the discerning traveler Dubai
remains a great destination; and for
the itinerant golfer it’s fabulous.
When I first went to Dubai n the mid-1980s, the road
connecting Dubai and Sharjah was
barren desert on either side with
the exception of a lonely KFC and
a sole petrol pump that became a
trans-shipment point connecting
the entire Gulf with Asia and the
Far East. Back then, golf was to say
the least rudimentary. There was
only one official course—a sand
layout with green stakes to mark
the fairways and oiled sand putting
surfaces (to call them “greens” would
be an insult to grass).
Big guys sporting bushy beards
were stationed beside each of the
“browns” to brush out the footprints
after we putted. This was the Dubai
Country Club, mostly populated
by Scots, and one of the few places
back then where you could get a
