When The European golf Tour rolls in to Abu Dhabi later this week, the capital will come into the global spotlight with the inaugural Abu Dhabi Golf Championship being broadcast to more than 300 million households across 60 countries with up to 700 hours of live coverage.

However, there is more to hosting an event of this calibre than providing a course as testing and as immaculately presented as the National where the tournament will be played from January 19 – 22, 2006.

The European Tour is a slick, multi-national organisation that requires first class infrastructure to support its activities. Abu Dhabi will become the 36th destination on The European Tour that will feature a minimum of 48 tournaments on the 2006 tour schedule held in 24 countries.

The Tour came to life in 1971 with a total prize money fund of €362,600 (