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THE Colin Montgomerie-designed Royal Golf Club course is getting a special seed infusion to ensure it is in tip-top condition for the arrival of the world's greatest golfers in January.
Riffa Views will be under the global sporting spotlight when Bahrain hosts its first-ever European Tour event.
Later today journalists from around the world will descend on the Royal Golf Club in Riffa to be updated on plans to stage the golfing extravaganza. Tournament organisers will outline how preparations to stage the inaugural European Tour event are progressing as well as revealing details about its official name and logo.
But from a playing perspective its success or failure lies firmly in the hands of the club's director of agronomy, Mark Hooker, and his team ... and it's a challenge they are relishing.
"This is a great opportunity at many levels - eventually having the first major European Tour event on the calendar year fits very nicely with the F1 Grand Prix. It showcases Bahrain as a leading country for international events and will hopefully impact the tourism market in a positive way.
"In addition to this, there will be a positive spin-off for Riffa Views in general showing the world what an amazing development we have here.
"The event fits very well with our organisation's vision of being the premier leisure destination of choice in Bahrain. On a personal note, I am really excited about our course being showcased to the world. Come January we will have turned a full circle from construction through to grow-in and maintenance and now an international event.
"Preparing our golf course for a major international event is the pinnacle of our careers. Our team is very excited and although we have a lot of hard work between now and the event we are all up for the challenge and looking forward to it.
"Golf courses are always evolving with minor improvements on a year-by-year basis. The major difference for us is to work hard in collaboration with IMG and the European Tour team to identify areas that need improvement or modification for the event and prioritise and complete the works before January 2011.
"Our golf course is currently in fantastic condition so we are in a positive position moving forward for the event.
"The most obvious change for the event will be overseeding the course with a cool season turfgrass variety in November so we have an actively growing (and green) course in January for the event.
"This will be the first time ever a golf course in Bahrain has been overseeded and not only will the course look and play like an international venue for the event but it will also benefit our valued members and guests as they will have an outstanding golf course to play throughout our winter months.
"Bahrain is a tough environment to grow turfgrass. The combination of extreme temperatures combined with low quality irrigation water and sand root-zones is very challenging. Our team is very well versed in turfgrass management specific to the Royal Golf Club. We have developed irrigation and fertility programmes specifically for our course which work very well."
Hooker grew up on a dairy farm in New Zealand. He studied at Massey University, has been working in the turfgrass industry for nearly 20 years and is regarded as one of the industry's top experts.
He started his career at a golf course in New Zealand at the age of 16 and in recent years has held consulting and advisory positions that have taken him to more than 25 countries around Asia and the Pacific.
"I have been fortunate to work closely with a number of high profile sporting stars in a range of codes from golf through to football and cricket which has been exciting and challenging," he explained. "I came to Bahrain after accepting a position as 'grow-in manager' for the Royal Golf Club under the contractor BGD Nass. After completing the construction and grow-in of the course, I joined the Royal Golf Club as director of agronomy to stay on at the club and help our team develop sound agronomic programmes for the course."
He describes himself as a 'social golfer' and plays off a 20 handicap. He is married to Stephanie, a teacher, and lives in Saar. They have a two-year-old son, Caleb Jaxson, and their second child is expected in the same month of the big golfing event.
With a prize pot of more than BD800,000 (1.7million euros) the 'celebration of golf' in Bahrain is likely to attract top players like Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell (both European and US stars can play in a select number of events across continents) between January 27 to 30.
Golf's major sponsor Volvo has been working together with leading sports, entertainment and media company IMG and The European Tour Tournament Committee to create a very special event with unique qualification criteria, whereby only winners of previous European Tour to
By way of celebrating the very first edition of this tournament, the 2011 event will be widened to a full field of up to 126 players slotting into the January schedule, bringing together both current and past European Tour winners, including champions of past major events.
From 2012, the tournament will revert to a stream-lined 'European Tour Tournament of Champions' anticipated to only include winners of the previous season's Race to Dubai-counting tournaments.
Crucially, the 2012 and 2013 editions will then move to an earlier January date, ensuring the tournament is then the first full counting event of The European Tour international schedule.
With the creation of this new tournament, the organisers have found an innovative way to combine the sport's grassroots and professional elite for inviting leading qualifiers from the Volvo Masters Amateur Tour to play alongside the stars on one tournament day.
Bahrain has been chosen as the host destination with the full backing and investment of the Economic Development Board (EDB) which has identified golf as an ideal international marketing platform from which to promote the kingdom, in particular a global TV audience of millions.
Volvo's golf event management president and chief executive Per Ericsson said: "We have spent a great deal of time looking at venues around the world and decided upon Bahrain as not only the venue that has got everything we need, but the Bahrain EDB have shown great vision and enthusiasm to host this world-class tournament."
The European Tour chief executive George O'Grady said: "The Kingdom of Bahrain becomes the 38th country to host European Tour competition, and our members will look forward to exhibiting their world-class skills in this new arena."
IMG golf director, EAME, Guy Kinnings added: "IMG has worked with the Royal Golf Club for many years and shared their goal of hosting a European Tour event so it is very satisfying to see this happen. We are particularly grateful to the support of the Bahrain EDB, whose vision in supporting the championship was a key factor as we looked at venues."
Welcoming the event, EDB chief executive Shaikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa said: "We have worked hard to bring this event to Bahrain and are very happy that Volvo, IMG and The European Tour have chosen us as host. Golf has a very strong global presence and we believe it will bring great benefits to Bahrain. We very much look forward to welcoming the players and guests to Bahrain and think this will be a very popular event."
Since opening its doors on January 1, 2009, the Royal Golf Club has successfully hosted many prominent tournaments including the Gulf Air International Pro-Captain Challenge and the annual IADC Golf Day, boasting well over 200 competitors. At the weekend the venue once again played host to the prestigious Faldo Series Asia Middle East qualifier for the second consecutive year.
