fujairah Harradine Tapped for Course Number One

     A Dubai-based developer has outlined plans to build what appears to be the first golf course in Fujairah.
     The 18-hole track will be the centerpiece of Ain Madhab, a planned community that its promoters say will be “fully integrated with the city of Fujairah but still private and serene.” Besides the golf course, Ain Madhab will feature more than 1,000 townhomes, villas, and apartments, a boutique hotel, office space, a shopping area, a spa, restaurants, and other attractions.
     The community is being developed by Elwan Group, a family-controlled firm that’s been in business since 1922. (Its director of development, Darik Elwan, is the grandson of the company’s founder.) In recent years, the company has branched out beyond the Middle East, with residential and resort projects in Europe and North America.
     Elwan has hired Peter Harradine, one of golf’s true road warriors, to design Ain Madhab’s golf course and golf academy. Harradine, who’s based in Switzerland but has an office in Dubai, currently has active or semi-active projects in the Ukraine, Serbia, Tatarstan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, Georgia (the country, not the U.S. state), and several other nations.
     Harradine is an advocate of “affordable” courses that can be enjoyed by average golfers, an approach that seems well-suited to a nation with no golf industry to speak of. Fujairah is among the smallest and least populated (population: 130,000) of the seven principalities that comprise the United Arab Emirates, and I can’t find evidence of any golf properties within its borders.
      Elwan hasn’t yet secured approvals and permits for Ain Madhab. The development process was moving along smoothly until what Harradine calls “important archaeological findings” were unearthed on the property. Via e-mail, he reports that the discovery will “cause a delay in the issuing of tender documents.”

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the November 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.