Australia’s Adam Scott finished in the top five at three majors in 2013 including a win at the Masters. Kevin Cox / AFP
Australia’s Adam Scott finished in the top five at three majors in 2013 including a win at the Masters. Kevin Cox / AFP

Australian golfer Scott headed back home ‘for the love of the game’



If Adam Scott had become an artiste in a different medium, he surely would have been a minimalist.

Sparse and spartan are better. Substance over style. Even his personality is a bit understated.

For the past few years, as the world’s second-ranked player has trimmed back his schedule in an attempt to emphasise quality over quantity, he dropped his European Tour membership and culled events from his PGA Tour itinerary.

Nobody can argue the results. He could have won the Masters and British Open last year, and when he finally broke through in April to become the first Australian to win at Augusta National, a country of 23 million all but erupted en masse.

It took seven months, but Scott is finally getting a chance to take a bow before fans down under, who are sure to embrace him as warmly as the famed green jacket itself.

There will be no ticker-tape parades or regattas in Sydney Harbour — definitely not his style — but Scott will be on display nonetheless in a month-long series of events that will make him even more of national hero.

In perhaps the most magnanimous decision of the year, Scott returned home to serve as the centrepiece in what has been dubbed the Summer of Golf, which begins today at the Australian PGA.

The run continues with the Australian Masters and Open, plus the World Cup, a two-man team event featuring many of the world’s top players, sorted by nationality. Scott, 33, signed up for all of them.

Soak it up, Australia, because this is rare fare.

“Yeah, I could have made lots more money playing in Asia, but I really want to play in Australia,” Scott told the Australian broadcast journalist Luke Elvy.

“One of the insights into why I’ve done well recently is because I’ve taken money out of every decision I make. I’m back playing for the love of the game.”

His homecoming could be a love fest. Especially since changes to the PGA Tour schedule have made it harder than ever for top Aussies to return home for the country’s biggest events.

Scott’s streamlined US schedule has been a spectacular success. He has played in 40 official events over the past 24 months, one fewer than the semi-reclusive Tiger Woods. Yet he finished in the top five at three majors in 2013 and posted the lowest cumulative score at the grand slam events for the second straight year.

Scott’s less-is-more mindset has been optimal. But this month, to the certain adulation of thousands, he made a rightful exception.

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Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

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Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

Specs

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Starring: Mirfat Amin, Boumi Fouad and Tariq Al Ibyari

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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

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The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

If you go

Flying

Despite the extreme distance, flying to Fairbanks is relatively simple, requiring just one transfer in Seattle, which can be reached directly from Dubai with Emirates for Dh6,800 return.

 

Touring

Gondwana Ecotours’ seven-day Polar Bear Adventure starts in Fairbanks in central Alaska before visiting Kaktovik and Utqiarvik on the North Slope. Polar bear viewing is highly likely in Kaktovik, with up to five two-hour boat tours included. Prices start from Dh11,500 per person, with all local flights, meals and accommodation included; gondwanaecotours.com 

Another way to earn air miles

In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.

An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.

“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.

Our legal columnist

Name: Yousef Al Bahar

Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994

Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers

The National Archives, Abu Dhabi

Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.

Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en

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