Majlis Course

Few golf courses anywhere in the world carry the symbolic weight of the Emirates Golf Club's Majlis Course — the first grass course ever constructed in the Middle East, opened in 1988 and immediately transforming what desert golf could mean. Designed by Karl Litten, it was built against every environmental instinct, coaxing a lush, tree-lined parkland layout from the Arabian sand. The clubhouse, shaped to resemble a cluster of Bedouin tents, remains one of golf's most recognizable landmarks and sets the tone for a course that takes its setting seriously rather than apologizing for it.

The Majlis made its global reputation as the long-time host of the Dubai Desert Classic, a European Tour event that has attracted nearly every major name in the game — Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Colin Montgomerie, and Rory McIlroy among its past champions. That tournament pedigree gives the course a credibility few venues in the region can match.

Dubai itself is a city that has remade itself several times over since the Majlis opened, but Emirates Golf Club remains a fixed point in that story — a place where the ambition that defines the emirate showed up first, and most durably, on a golf course.