It’s safe to say life has changed considerably for Chiara Noja between her two appearances at the Dubai Moonlight Classic presented by EGA.
Her debut last year, when aged 14, came not long after relocating to the emirate, a move postponed and postponed again because of the pandemic. Even now, she’s still getting her head around the lifestyle, far removed from her native Germany.
“I would not take a single second of it back, to be honest,” Noja tells The National. “The fact I can call my family and be like, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m at the beach right now’ - that’s absolutely insane to me.”
That could be used, too, to describe the ever-improving golf game, which registers at a fairly insane plus-7 handicap, and the fine performances this summer on the Ladies European Tour’s developmental circuit, the LET Access Series. At the Golf Flanders Trophy in Belgium, Noja finished runner-up, becoming the youngest player in the tour’s history to achieve that feat.
But perhaps the greatest difference in the then and now is that, when Noja tees it up for the first day’s play at Emirates Golf Club on Wednesday, she’ll be doing so as a professional.
That’s right: the Berlin-born teenager, still only 15, announced on Sunday that she had played her final round as an amateur. However, listen to Noja explain the decision, so succinctly and articulately that it belies her age, and it appears the obvious next step in a career she hopes promises much.
“Turning pro is a big step, but it’s one that I feel like I’m ready to take, especially here,” Noja says. “It’s probably the most emotionally connected event that I have.
“I've always made a point of competing against players a lot older, maybe a little better, more experienced than me. And I feel like that has always helped me develop as a player and as a person. It’s really shaped my golfing career.
“Especially over the last year, I’ve been playing on a professional tour, the LET Access Series. It’s given me so much more experience and insight to what the life is like and I’ve got a feel for that. I’m ready for that step and I want to take it right now.”
And anyway, Noja insists, it's not that much of a difference, to her at least.
“I still go to school, I’m still going to be practising hard and playing tournaments. The only thing is the title, I guess,” she says. “The commitments can change a little bit – it’s going to be a little more intense in that sense.
“But learning, coaching, travelling, they’re all parts of golf. That’s what makes up a golfing career. I’m really looking forward to getting to experience that aspect of life as well, because it is a really exciting step to take. It’s going to be a little different, but I’m up to it.”
The view is that balancing homework and her burgeoning career should not represent a problem, given Noja is part of a golf programme at her school. Handily, her studies are arranged around her golf.
“There’s a great support system in place,” she says, before confirming that mum and dad will ensure there won’t be “any slacking off”.
The immediate focus now, though, is this week’s 54-hole event on the Faldo Course. Last year, playing as she is this week on a sponsor’s invite, Noja struggled initially with her first taste of professional golf - pretty understandable - posting rounds of 77 and 86 before rebounding well on the Friday to finish with a 73.
To her credit, she looked upon the experience as all part of the learning process. “Accepting failure" was the key lesson gleaned.
"Because I sort of always thought that, ‘Oh everyone fails at some point, but it won’t happen to me’," Noja says. "I always thought I would get that opportunity and I would just be perfectly cool with it. But until you experience it you never know how you’re going to react.
“But this year it’s being a lot more myself and learning how I react to scenarios like that and just accepting failure and not being scared to fail. Because a lot of it is trying to avoid failure, which is never going to happen.
“You’re going to have bad misses, bad holes, bad days, but it’s just sucking it up and moving on."
For that, Noja describes last year's experience as "incredible", realising how fortunate she was, in fact, to go through that at a young age. Noja regrouped and went back to contesting local competitions before taking a sizeable step up to the Access Series.
Understandably, she is grateful to the LET for the support, and the insight it has provided, and repaid that faith in her displays.
Aside from the second place in Belgium, Noja finished tied-eighth in Sweden, even when she says she didn’t have her best golf. Overall, the tour’s been “really inspiring and awesome”.
“The one word that pops to mind is growth,” she says of the year between Moonlight Classics. “I was a very different person back then. Less experience, definitely less self-aware of who I was as an athlete, less confident in who I am.
“Over the last year I’ve spent a long time developing that mental health aspect of the game. Competing, getting more confidence, accepting that everyone’s going to fail at some point. It’s about getting back up more than you fail. So lots of growth. Because that’s such an important aspect of developing as an athlete.”
The plan is to showcase that progression this week. Noja will compete alongside the likes of former world No 1 and two-time major champion Ariya Jutanugarn, and four-time major winner Laura Davies.
And even better, this year’s event welcomes back fans, on Thursday and Friday - much to Noja’s delight.
“Probably the spectators,” she says when asked what she’s most excited about. “Because I’ve played in front of crowds at the LET Access but not like this before.
“The event’s been absolutely incredibly organised. Falcon [Associates], the LET, they’ve done a great job. And I’m more confident in who I am and you know what to look out for. I’ve played the course a lot more since then too. So I’m excited.”
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Fines for littering
In Dubai:
Dh200 for littering or spitting in the Dubai Metro
Dh500 for throwing cigarette butts or chewing gum on the floor, or littering from a vehicle.
Dh1,000 for littering on a beach, spitting in public places, throwing a cigarette butt from a vehicle
In Sharjah and other emirates
Dh500 for littering - including cigarette butts and chewing gum - in public places and beaches in Sharjah
Dh2,000 for littering in Sharjah deserts
Dh500 for littering from a vehicle in Ras Al Khaimah
Dh1,000 for littering from a car in Abu Dhabi
Dh1,000 to Dh100,000 for dumping waste in residential or public areas in Al Ain
Dh10,000 for littering at Ajman's beaches
EPL's youngest
- Ethan Nwaneri (Arsenal)
15 years, 181 days old
- Max Dowman (Arsenal)
15 years, 235 days old
- Jeremy Monga (Leicester)
15 years, 271 days old
- Harvey Elliott (Fulham)
16 years, 30 days old
- Matthew Briggs (Fulham)
16 years, 68 days old
Know your Camel lingo
The bairaq is a competition for the best herd of 50 camels, named for the banner its winner takes home
Namoos - a word of congratulations reserved for falconry competitions, camel races and camel pageants. It best translates as 'the pride of victory' - and for competitors, it is priceless
Asayel camels - sleek, short-haired hound-like racers
Majahim - chocolate-brown camels that can grow to weigh two tonnes. They were only valued for milk until camel pageantry took off in the 1990s
Millions Street - the thoroughfare where camels are led and where white 4x4s throng throughout the festival
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
The biog
Birthday: February 22, 1956
Born: Madahha near Chittagong, Bangladesh
Arrived in UAE: 1978
Exercise: At least one hour a day on the Corniche, from 5.30-6am and 7pm to 8pm.
Favourite place in Abu Dhabi? “Everywhere. Wherever you go, you can relax.”
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
THE BIG MATCH
Arsenal v Manchester City,
Sunday, Emirates Stadium, 6.30pm
