We spent the weekend at the beautiful Doha Golf Course watching the final two days of the Qatar Masters. The weather was like San Diego in May – extraordinarily beautiful – there was a breeze and the green grounds are perfectly manicured amid stone hills and rocky water hazards dyed a TV-appealing blue. I have never appreciated desert landscaping until this weekend. The development here has been designed by the best of the best and this was no exception. There is grass on the course but heaven help the wayward golfer whose shot strays outside of the fairways.
Cacti that I have only seen before in 2” pots are the size of trees here. I had never understood the fascination with the desert orchid that seems to grow randomly. Now I do. I want one. They are gorgeous. Huge Aloe Vera plants flowed along the walkways in lieu of azaleas, Mother-in-Law tongue plants followed (huge Mother-in-Law tongue plants) next to pencil cacti that are ten feet tall. The colorful bougainvilleas are the perfect desert backdrop. There is a cactus here indigenous to Arizona that was imported just for the golf course and it seems to be thriving. At the Doha Garden Club, we heard a few stories about one of the Sheiks who owns five football field size greenhouses and flies around the world in his personal 747 collecting new varieties of plants. He has a family 747 that follows him to bring his new acquisitions home. He has an on-site horticulturist, plumber and I think they said 20 workers per building live there. I cannot imagine the labor force that tends to the Doha Golf Club. At our club in Bintan, Indonesia the workers used to weed the fairways by hand and I have to think it is even more intensive here.
We settled into seats in the grandstand at the 16th/17th holes and watched some great golf for the last few hours. The people watching was extraordinary!
Saturday morning, somewhere in Doha a woman of Japanese descent got dressed. To attend a golf tournament in the desert, she put on gray tights, brown knit pants, white sox and black tennis shoes topped with a white mock turtle neck, a long sleeve black sweater WITH a knee length gold and black sparkly tunic (it would have made any Saints fan proud). Her visor was oversized – black in the front and gold on the sides and she was carrying a black jacket with just enough of the Burberry lining peeking out with her Gucci gray and black tote. Her husband joined her sporting a bushy mustache, Elvis sideburns and a black Harley Davidson cowboy hat.
There was actually a woman in local dress working the tournament and watching someone in full Qatari National dress scream around in a golf cart was startling to say the least. I doubt it is very common as we only saw one man and one woman; since we couldn’t see her face – I couldn’t tell if it was a family thing or not. I have to think it was a true experience for the US golfers who were teeing off as the call to prayer echoed across the desert.
The restrooms are designed to look like castle shaped desert outposts. There is very little water pressure and I would imagine the sewage/water system is not connected to anything except a tank. The gift venue was all in temporary collapsible buildings and the snack bar was called the “Golf Restaurant”. The food was truly international. The American contribution was French fries! There were only three US players competing (one from Germantown, TN) so the food selection was mostly British. Beer was only sold in one area and served in bright blue cups, which could not be taken out of the beer tent.
The entire experience was wonderfully fun – very international – and free. Our Swedish neighbors hosted a Swedish caddy and all of them were celebrating the win by a Swede when we got home and all of the whispering before a shot was done with either a British or an Australian accent. We did meet a couple from Houston (oil company employees), a VMI alum whose daughter teaches at the Qatar branch of Texas A & M and a woman who has lived in twelve countries following her husbands career around the world. The crowd was small enough that we saw several people we knew as they passed by the 16th hole.
Doha really is an international small town.
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