Tiger's $1.1 billion Dubai course plan 'on track'

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Tiger Woods is already the world's top-ranked golfer and highest-paid athlete. And if all goes according to plan, he'll soon be sporting his biggest trophy yet: a luxury golf course hewn from the sands of the Arabian desert.

The ambitious project, touted as the first course in the world designed by the 2008 U.S. Open champion, remains a work in progress on the outskirts of this Middle Eastern boomtown -- much like the rapidly growing city itself.

But the project's chief said Monday that the first phase of the development, which among other unlikely features promises 5 million square feet of locally grown grass and more than 30,000 full-grown imported trees, is on target for completion sometime in the last three months of 2009.

"Our schedule is currently on track," Abdulla Al Gurg said in an interview with the Associated Press.

However, Gurg did leave the Dubai-based developer Tatweer some wiggle room in case the city's notorious work delays snag one of its most high-profile projects, adding: "Our key criteria is adherence to excellence."

Tatweer is a division of Dubai Holding, which is owned by the emirate and its ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The golf course project, known as The Tiger Woods Dubai, will be part of a massive theme-park complex known as Dubailand the company is building on barren desert along the edge of the city.

Gurg said the company is spending 4 billion dirhams -- about $1.09 billion -- to build the course and the surrounding housing development.

He wouldn't say how much Woods was being paid.

Gurg spoke following an event to showcase the project at a glitzy beachfront hotel just down the road from a man-made marina surrounded by dozens of skyscrapers, many still under construction.

Full-page ads in Emirates newspapers have been trying to entice local buyers to consider one of the 197 so-called palaces, mansions and villas that will flank the course.

The project's first stage will consist of the 18-hole, par 72 course itself, as well as a golf academy and a driving range. A hotel and most of the gated housing community should be finished by the second or third quarter of 2010, Gurg said.

On Monday, Woods paid his first visit to the construction site since a June knee surgery sidelined him for the rest of the 2008 season. He said he didn't know when he might return to play next year.

"It's frustrating for me," he said when asked about the injury. Woods didn't rule out defending his title as Dubai Desert Classic champion, adding that he plans to "be hitting golf balls at the beginning of the year."