Almost 100 executives from the international duty free industry will descend to Dubai to compete in the 27th Dubai Duty Free Golf World Cup taking place over two days at Dubai Hills Golf Club on 27th November and Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club on 28th November, respectively.

The invitation-only tournament has attracted over 60 overseas players in addition to those competing from the UAE and Gulf region and has grown into one of the most popular events on the duty free calendar.

The tournament takes place directly after this week’s Middle East & Africa Duty Free Association (MEADFA) conference which this year is taking place in Oman.

Colm McLoughlin, Executive Vice-Chairman & CEO of Dubai Duty Free described this year’s participation level as ‘excellent’ and expressed his delight that some of the players are returning having participated in the tournament almost every year since 1993. He said: 'The response to this year’s tournament has once again been very good and we are delighted to welcome these key industry figures back to Dubai. We are also happy to welcome back Des Smyth as the golf pro of the tournament.'

The tournament is open to all male and female amateur players with a valid handicap of 28/36 or less. A special seniors categories was also introduced to make it more interesting and they are from age 50+, 65+ and 70+.

Past winners of the Dubai Duty Free Golf World Cup include Steve Flanagan (1993/1996); Raimund Legnar (1994); Brendan O’Shea (1995); Noel Fox (1997- 2000); Jan Baljet (2001); Ulrik Moller (2002); Adel Zarooni (2003-2004); Art Miller (2005); John Kammerman (2006); Nayma Maya (2007); Mark Van Huesden (2008); James Kfouri (2009); Gurbax Singh (2010); Clark Francis (2011); Rabih Sfeila (2012); Dermot Davitt (2013); Denise Kennedy (2014), Bayer Khan (2015), Scott Campbell (2016), Clark Francis (2017) and Cees van Dooren (2018).

November/December are traditionally busy months for Dubai Duty Free and this year is no exception. In recent weeks, the operation has supported the DP World Tour Championship – Race to Dubai and we will soon be flying the flag at the 50th Emirates Dubai Rugby 7’s on 5th – 7th December. All of this brings right up to the 20th December when the operation celebrates its 36th Anniversary.