Tiger Woods unveils plan of Tatweer's golf facilityBy Nadia Saleem, Staff Reporter
Published: August 25, 2008, 23:12
Dubai: Tiger Woods, the world's richest golfer, on Monday unveiled the master plan of Tatweer's exclusive golf community, The Tiger Woods Dubai (TWD).
Al Ruwaya, the first golf course designed by Tiger Woods - chairman of Tiger Woods Design, will cover over 13 million square feet.
The course will also include a golf academy, a 145,000-square foot clubhouse and a spa.
The residential plots will be developed to create 22 palaces, 75 mansions and 100 signature villas. The palaces will each cover 100,000 square feet, while each mansion will have 50,000 square feet and a villa will have 30,000 square feet.
Tiger Woods said: "To be a part of this has been a lifelong dream of mine. I want this to be an oasis, an escape from the city. As everyone knows, Dubai has grown quite a bit and this will be a place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city."
On the attraction to this city, Woods said, "Dubai is basically in the biggest, greatest and newest of everything."
The prices of the residences begin from Dh40 million ($11M US) and go up to Dh150 million ($40M US), according to sources.
The signature development will also house a Dh600-million hotel, of 90 suites and 14 bungalows in sizes varying from 1,6000 to 9,500 square feet.
Scheduled for completion in 2009, the project is located within Dubailand.
A tree, palm and plant nursery of 30 hectares will also be constructed for over 11,000 trees and palms to be installed on the golf course.
Abdullah Al Gurg, project director of TWD, said: "Never before has there been a development as ambitious as Tiger Woods Dubai."
New techniques
"We have pioneered new techniques in construction and design to overcome the challenge that we face in transforming 55 million square feet of desert into a green space that is one and a half times the size of New York's Central Park and almost four times the size of London's Hyde Park," he said.
Al Gurg said a water treatment plant will be constructed to recycle 30,000 cubic metres of Dubai's waste water everyday, to sustain vegetation at the development.
Woods said that he has always been a "doodler" when it comes to sketches, while talking about his designing skill.
In the beginning, he tried to understand why an architect designed something a certain way in order to enhance course strategy while playing and also to draw inspiration from.
"Designing in the real world, not just on paper is a lot more difficult than I thought. A lot more goes into it than just putting something on paper, a lot more detail," Woods said.
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and can you believe the size of this building....
