Abu Dhabi // For a guy who was born and raised in a country with mountains, woodlands, neck-high snowdrifts and herds of reindeer, Henrik Stenson seems to have found a liking for the alternative to become golf’s king of the desert.
It isn’t just that he won the DP World Tour Championship last autumn, securing the Race to Dubai title and all of its bonus money. Or that he won the elite Accenture Match Play Championship in 2007, played amid statuesque Saguaro cacti in the Arizona desert.
He has also become a walking, talking emissary of the European Tour’s Desert Swing.
He has never missed the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which begins play for the ninth year tomorrow with Stenson, the world No 3 and a Dubai resident for nearly a decade, as the top-rated player in the field.
His presence is anything but surprising. Since landing a European Tour card in 2001, Stenson has played in the Qatar Masters and Dubai Desert Classic every year. He has played in the Race to Dubai finale every year in which he has been eligible, too.
So, of the four European Tour events staged in the region, he’s won three of them and finished second in Abu Dhabi twice. After his win in Dubai in November, he can complete what has quickly been dubbed the Gulf Slam with a victory this week.
“It’s the one tournament in this part of the world that I haven’t won,” he said today. “It would be a nice one to add to my collection here, having made Dubai my home for almost 10 years.”
It would represent a stirring start to the new year after a career-defining season. Stenson last year became the first player to claim the Race to Dubai and Fed Ex Cup titles in the same year and hauled in about US$20 million (Dh73.5m) in earnings and bonuses.
He had hardly set foot on the Abu Dhabi Golf Club property yesterday when the notion of bettering those results was broached. Talk about million-dollar questions.
“I’m open for suggestions,” he said. “Maybe we don’t need to better it. Maybe we just need to equal it. I’m not greedy.”
After a Herculean schedule last year that entailed 31 global starts, Stenson has signed up for all three Desert Swing events in succession, starting this week. He won the Qatar Classic in 2006 and the Dubai Desert Classic a year later. He finished second in Abu Dhabi in 2006 – where he lost by one shot to Chris DiMarco – and 2008.
With most top-10 players piecing together schedules consisting of about 20 starts, Stenson was on the road so often, he felt like a valet. Then again, there might be a less-obvious reason for his fat frequent-flyer account.
Stenson is building new homes in Sweden and Florida. For anybody who has built a house from scratch, being on the road for two-thirds of the year would just about be welcome respite.
“It was probably a good thing playing a lot of tournaments,” he said, laughing. “If you’re running around looking at tiles rather than making three-footers, then it can affect you.”
Stenson was back on the airline shuttle over the past two weeks, too. He spent a few days in Dubai practising, then hopped on a jet last weekend to Stockholm, where he was named Sweden’s Male Sports Athlete of the Year at a gala awards banquet. He also won a live fan vote as the people’s pick for top sports figure of 2013.
Robert Karlsson, who won the European Order of Merit in 2008, is the only other male golfer to have won the people’s award, although Hall of Fame golfer Annika Sorenstam won it multiple times.
While honorariums are nice, Stenson’s eyes are on four particular trophies in 2014. He finished third or better at the British Open and PGA Championship last season and no male Swede has ever won a major.
“It’s the last thing kind of on my CV to add,” he said. “That would be icing on the cake. It’s kind of the one thing missing. So that’s going to be the main focus, to try and prepare well.
“I’m very positive that it will happen at some point. Hopefully, I can be the one.”
Interesting choice of words, since he has openly talked about being “the one” – as in number one in the world. Only Tiger Woods and Adam Scott are ahead of him, although Stenson, having fought through two lengthy career slumps, knows there is more left in his tank.
“There is still room for improvement, I promise,” he said.
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Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship Tee Times
WWE TLC results
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
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The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
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The specs: 2019 BMW X4
Price, base / as tested: Dh276,675 / Dh346,800
Engine: 3.0-litre turbocharged in-line six-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 354hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 500Nm @ 1,550rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 9.0L / 100km
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
TOUCH RULES
Touch is derived from rugby league. Teams consist of up to 14 players with a maximum of six on the field at any time.
Teams can make as many substitutions as they want during the 40 minute matches.
Similar to rugby league, the attacking team has six attempts - or touches - before possession changes over.
A touch is any contact between the player with the ball and a defender, and must be with minimum force.
After a touch the player performs a “roll-ball” - similar to the play-the-ball in league - stepping over or rolling the ball between the feet.
At the roll-ball, the defenders have to retreat a minimum of five metres.
A touchdown is scored when an attacking player places the ball on or over the score-line.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Ain Issa camp:
- Established in 2016
- Houses 13,309 people, 2,092 families, 62 per cent children
- Of the adult population, 49 per cent men, 51 per cent women (not including foreigners annexe)
- Most from Deir Ezzor and Raqqa
- 950 foreigners linked to ISIS and their families
- NGO Blumont runs camp management for the UN
- One of the nine official (UN recognised) camps in the region
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Student Of The Year 2
Director: Punit Malhotra
Stars: Tiger Shroff, Tara Sutaria, Ananya Pandey, Aditya Seal
1.5 stars
