Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club

About the club

Half a century ago, Dubai was a sleepy trading and fishing outpost, but the petroleum economy changed everything, and one of the consequences of the influx of capital has been the construction of golf courses. The first turf layouts were constructed here in the Eighties and Nineties, and the Dubai Creek and Yacht Club center was one. The urban area has since taken over the area, so you no longer see the pair of sails from junk boats from afar as you approach the club. The course occupies level, sandy ground—oddly enough for a desert locale, the proper kind of sand for bunkering proved elusive and had to be brought in from Oman— overgrown with grass and relieved by water in the form of the creek after which the club is called, and which was the lifeblood of the earliest settlement. Karl Litten's design has something for everyone; just watch out for the winds.