Persian Golf Crisis: Every Shot Is in the Sand

Mark Tucker’s tee shot on the dogleg par-4 third hole plopped down right where he wanted it--in the sand.

The next shot was a tough one--there was little room behind the green, and a shot too long would land out of bounds.

But Tucker again was near perfect, dropping the ball just to the left of the green--in the sand.

Welcome to golf, desert style, where every shot--or at least every good shot--lands in the sand.

Even the greens, which the locals call “browns,” are sand, packed hard by rollers and made into a clay-like substance by spraying with the area’s most abundant substance next to sand--oil. A sign at the first hole warns golfers, “No Spiked Shoes Allowed On Greens.”

You can’t play this course with clubs and balls alone. Players carry a small square of plastic grass, placing it under the ball before every shot to provide a not-so-lush green surface to hit off.

Tucker played a round of golf recently with a reporter who had spotted the course while flying over it in a helicopter. Most golf courses are tucked into the woods or alongside a lake; this one is between a huge military air base and rows of oil storage tanks.

The “Rolling Hills Country Club” is one of the many recreational facilities offered to employees of Saudi Aramco, the huge oil company in the northeast Saudi desert.

“It is something else, isn’t it?” Tucker asked during a nine-hole round. The complex has 27 holes, split between east, west and south courses. The courses were built in the 1970s, but there has been golf at Aramco since not long after the company was established 50 years ago.

There is a driving range, too, and a club where golfers, much like their counterparts back in the States, can grab a burger and beer after a round. Here, however, the beer is non-alcoholic.

Tucker, asked to compare desert golf to the game back home, misses the beer more than the grass.