Greg Allen's Dubai Blog
If ever there was an image of what a recession does to a booming economy, Dubai offers a window like few other examples.
The half-completed skyscrapers that line the ten-lane Sheikh Zayed Road that runs through the heart of this 21st-century city are only part of the story.
The Jumeirah Estates development where the Dubai World Championship is being staged this week, is another unfinished monument to the unbridled ambition that was borne out of the optimism which existed barely a year or more ago.
This was to be the millionaires' golf resort of choice in the Arabian Desert. Hundreds of large detached houses, many of them mansions, ranging in price from 1 million to 5 million euro at the centre of which was to be the Earth course, designed by Greg Norman.
The lay-out is quite a sight to behold at first. A man-made green lush oasis in the desert, irrigated by desalinated water from the Persian Gulf - its newness has the look of having being just removed from bubble-wrap.
There is barely any rough; the fairways are almost pristine although they bear the signs of recent work.
Some late grooming has left parts of the surrounds of the course appearing as though they were laid so recently that the seams between the grass sodding are still apparent.
And yet, although it appears to be in the middle of a building site, it is ready to stage an event which will determine who will end 2009 as Europe's No 1.
Money used to talk, if not shout, in this part of the world not that long ago. Now it has to whisper occasionally. There are still signs of it everywhere in the Manhattan-like skyline that has sprouted downtown in the last ten years and yet its absence is equally evident from the hundreds of partially completed houses around the course to the unfinished club-house.
And yet still, this grand project of ending the year with a massive pot of money on offer to Europe's No 1 player, is intact. It almost defies reason.
Admittedly, it's not as big a pot as was first conceived but in spite of the 25 per cent of reduction, the remaining 7.5 million US dollars is still the biggest prize fund in an event organised by the European Tour. And on Sunday, it's possible that one of four players could face a putt worth a potential 2.75 million dollars.
And given the form he has shown over his last five rounds of golf, which he has completed in 26-under-par, Rory McIlroy has an odds-on chance of winning most, if not all of that jackpot.
But he wants more and it's not necessarily about the money, as extraordinary and clichéd as that might sound.
If Greg Norman's prediction today is anything to go by, the odd million dollars here or there, at this point in his career, is not going to substantially alter the mindset of McIlroy.
'His future, you can almost say, is cast in stone in a lot of ways,' Norman said about a player who clearly reminds him a little of the dashing golfer he once was.
The prediction, one of many compliments paid to McIlroy this year from various sources from Tiger Woods to Jack Nicklaus, seems to rest easily on the shoulders of the young man from County Down and today he was relaxed, funny, charming and obliging at his preview press conference.
Such composure and maturity has been a hallmark of his incredibly consistent year at the end of which he is poised to become the youngest European Tour No 1 since one of his idols, Severiano Ballesteros, topped the Order of Merit 33 years ago.
Today, when asked if he would like, in future years, to be compared to the mercurial Spaniard or the dogged Nick Faldo, McIlroy had no hesitation in picking Seve. After giving Faldo due credit he simply said that Seve had more fans. It may have been a casual remark or perhaps a deliberate statement but in either case it would appear there is clearly more to Rory's ambition than winning money and titles.
