RIYADH — Saudi golf coach Faraj Mezhar hit his first shots
on a sandy course in neighboring
Qatar three decades ago, an outing that
changed his life forever.
اضافة اعلان
After a long stint
with the Saudi national team, these days he helps amateurs with their swing and
short game, part of a national project to transform the Gulf state into an
unlikely golf powerhouse.
Professional golf
has this year been roiled by the emergence of LIV Golf, a Saudi-funded
breakaway circuit that has lured stars from the
US PGA Tour with eye-watering
prize money of $25 million per tournament.
The limited-field,
no-cut circuit will hold its first tournament on Saudi soil starting on Friday,
drawing top-flight talent like Australia’s Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson of
the US to a course outside the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah.
LIV’s CEO Greg
Norman stands accused of tearing golf apart with help from the deep-pocketed
Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), in what activists describe as
“sportswashing”.
But in interviews
with AFP, professional and amateur Saudi golfers said they were either bemused
by the controversy or ignoring it as they focused instead on growing the sport
at home or perfecting their swing.
“There must be
competition in the world of golf,” and so far the rivalry between PGA and LIV
has been “honest and classy”, Mezhar said at the Riyadh Golf Club, an oasis of
palm trees and manicured fairways north of the city center.
He encouraged a
reporter to watch his five-year-old son blast drives off a tee with a 3-wood,
boasting that he would be “the next star player in the kingdom”.
Golf in the Gulf
Well before the LIV tour held its first 54-hole, shotgun-start tournament
in England in June, the Saudi government was taking steps to promote golf in
the Gulf.
It is part of a
broader push to invest in sport as the kingdom, long closed off to outsiders,
tries to project a friendlier image abroad while diversifying its economy away
from oil.
The Saudi Golf
Federation, headed by PIF governor
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, is pursuing what it
describes as “the most comprehensive development program the world of golf has
ever seen”.
Central to this
initiative are programs like “Ladies First”, which offers free lessons and
course access to female golfers, and “Let It Fly”, which gives free lessons to
Saudi youth.
Officials also plan
to add at least 10 new courses in the next decade, bringing the total in the
desert kingdom to 24.
Abdulaziz, a
Riyadh-based banker who asked to be identified only by his first name, pointed
to an uptick in public enthusiasm.
When he began
playing in 2009, golf was “mainly an expat game”, dominated by foreign
employees from oil giant Saudi Aramco and other firms. But that is no longer
the case.
Now the
double-decker driving range at Riyadh Golf Club is “full all the time with Saudis”,
he said.
‘Sportswashing and all
that’
A growing appetite for the sport is also spreading by word of mouth.
“I want others to experience what I’m experiencing,”
Abdulaziz said. “I mean, it’s very rare that here in Riyadh, in the middle of
the desert, you come to a place where it’s all green and you have lakes and you
have ducks swimming around.”
Abdulaziz played
down tensions between LIV Golf and the PGA, which has barred players from its
rival tour from competing in its events.
“Unfortunately,
people try to bring politics into it all the time, sportswashing and all that,”
he said. “We’re changing, we’re trying to uplift the quality of life here in
Saudi Arabia.”
New converts to the sport said they are more preoccupied
with improving their shots.
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