European Tour Insider: Plenty of gold in the desert

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Englishman Paul Casey returned to the winners' circle last week with a victory at the Abu Dhabi Championship.

Editor's note: This year, PGATOUR.COM not only will offer our readers a weekly PGA TOUR Insider, but we will also provide Insider columns focusing on the Champions Tour, Nationwide Tour and European Tour. Nick Dye, who works with European Tour Radio and will be at more than 30 events this year, is our European Tour Insider. This is his first installment.

DOHA, Qatar -- The Race to Dubai ... it's got a ring to it.

Combine the values of the Order of Merit with a new end-of-season championship, and there's a new verve and energy to the European Tour.

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The Race was launched last year, and several events already have counted, but being in the Middle East for the three events of the Desert Swing shines the spotlight all the more brightly on the pursuit of the pot of gold.

There's a lot of gold in this part of the world.

Black gold underpins the region's wealth, of course, but the lustrous shimmering sort is evident in much of the decoration of Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Dubai -- the three successive destinations for the Tour.

Paul Casey -- winner of the Abu Dhabi Championship, his first win since claiming the same event two years ago -- could barely believe the opulence of the seven-star hotel Emirates Palace in which he rested his head.

Look around at the multitude of building works and the number of new golf courses being built, and you wonder whether the global recession has any meaning here. Well, it does. There are reports of unpaid workers, of people fleeing back home to India, for instance -- with their savings -- and of projects being shelved "for a while."

But browse the developments of The Pearl in Qatar, Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi and The Tiger Woods Dubai -- the first course being designed by the game's No. 1 player -- and you can't help but marvel at the richness of the imagination as well as the wealth of this magnificently hospitable area.

Crunch the numbers here, and it seems like everyone comes out with credit.

WHISPER IT
What's Whisper Rock, Ariz., got to do with Abu Dhabi?

Kaymer

It's as if the club had its own championship here last week. Casey and Martin Kaymer -- head-to-head in the last pairing on Sunday -- are both members of the course north of Scottsdale.

They say the courses have similar grasses, similar grainy, overseeded greens, and the sunshine in common, but warn not to go off the fairway at Whisper Rock: "It's got snakes and all sorts of creepy-crawlies, you're not going to get out of there alive," Casey said.

WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR
Few doubt the young German Kaymer will become a huge star in the golf world -- if he's not one already.

A winner of two European Tour titles -- one of which he almost successfully defended last week, tying for second just one shot behind Casey -- he only narrowly missed out on the last Ryder Cup team. But not everyone's a fan.

"I don't like him, because he's good looking and talented," joked his friend, the equally good-looking and talented Casey.

Scott

GREAT SCOTT
Adam Scott has a rare record to defend at this week's Commercialbank Qatar Masters presented by Dolphin Energy. He's never been beaten over the Doha course. Two visits, six years apart, and two victories for the Aussie world No. 14, who tied for second at last week's Sony Open in Hawaii on the PGA TOUR.

SPEEDY FORMULA
Abu Dhabi has joined its Emirates neighbor Dubai in providing a checkered flag for a race. The Formula One motor racing season will, it appears, round off the 2009 calendar in AD. And they love their cars here, though it's questionable whether oil is cheaper than water.

Casey was contemplating a radio request for the Monday after his win. He wanted to oblige, but Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, had invited him to test-drive his new sports car.

Guess what won out?

THE RIGHT GIFT
What do you get the winner of the British Open and PGA Championship as a Christmas present?

"A teppanyaki table," Padraig Harrington replied. "One of those Japanese things that they cook in front of you. It's like a barbeque, so I have to learn how to cook on it now."