FOUR SEASONS GOLF CLUB DUBAI FESTIVAL CITY HAS THE FINEST CLUBHOUSE
by Scott A. Sumner
www.golfingews.ca
When you drive up to the Four Seasons Golf Club Dubai Festival City you can't help but be blown away by their amazing 70,000 square feet clubhouse. This is the finest structure for golf I have ever seen in my golf travels and really set the tone for your entire golf experience. It is an amazing clubhouse built in a circular motion with three restaurants of varying sizes, an Atrium lounge, a golf shop, academy, locker rooms, three distinct meeting areas and a
outdoor function space. The concept of the design of the club house is taken from the logo of the Festival City which is all about life. It is completely different very exciting dynamic the colouring earth oriented and soothing.
Adrienne Obrien, who is orginally from Australia is the Club Sales and Marketing Manager Four Season Golf Club, Dubai Festival City. The Four Seasons, a Canadian company with it's head office in Toronto is managing the course. " A new hotel is coming after the approvals are finished. It will be a large 400 key hotel with rooms, suites and villas and two minutes from the course with also a leisure focus," said Adrienne Obrien. " The course opened January 2005 under a different name with the clubhouse opened in January 2007. It was a fractional opening and was designed by Robet Trent Jones Jr. a world renowned, second generation architect with over 200 course designs around the world. We have a stong but small membership. Our product is all about the golf play. We have 15 minute tee times and do encourage corporate days on the weekdays. The UAE golf association has tee times available each day."
The Four Seasons Golf Club Dubai Festival City has over 200 members presently and in 2009 will increase to 250 members. The annual fee is 37,000 Dr or about $10,000 dollars.
Currently in summer the green fee is 400 Dr and high season Oct.1 to April is 850 DR . The weather can flutuate season to season in Dubai where in the height of winter you are looking at 3C in the morning moving quickly to 17C in the day. Summer it can be hot at 35 to 50C and can have up to 90% Humidity. The course is a great layout complete with water falls and plays to 7303 yards for the black tees. A definite test for all players!
" We aim for 30,000 rounds per year as our bench mark for our business model. For five months of the summer we close the course each week for 3 days to work on the grasses and encourage growth. We have staff of 40 on agronomy. The owner, Omar Abdul has distribution
rights to Toyota ,Jeep etc and are a firmly established Dubai family. Every building in Festival City is owned by them. He is a business man who wants to give a legacy for the city," smiles Obrien." Dubai is a great environment for hospitality. The courses are outstanding, perfect year round, shopping is fantastic and there are spas. It is an alternative to a number of other destinations around the world but Dubai is an exciting, vibrant place. To be a main player we need to build the facilities . It is a long term plan for the next 5 to 7 years. At the beach or on the courses your line of sight is where you want it ot be. You see cranes everywhere but not if you aren’t looking for them. If they come here for business they can stay here and have a Four Season experience."
