Paul McGinley will lead a host of star names at the 2017 Abu Dhabi Invitational at the award-winning Yas Links on Yas Island from January 28-29, 2017. He will captain a Professional Golfers’ Team against a Celebrity Team in an exciting change of format for the second Abu Dhabi Invitational event.
The 2017 edition will comprise an Amateur Championship on Saturday 28 January with an invited sponsor and stakeholder guests before the main Invitational on Sunday 29 January.
Each professional and each celebrity will be paired with a VIP guest and the teams will compete against each other in a Ryder Cup Fourball format. The teams will be playing to raise money for the captains’ charities, with McGinley’s team playing for The McGinley Foundation. The Celebrity Captain and their charity will be revealed in January 2017.
In 2013, Abu Dhabi declared that they would like to achieve a larger portion of the approximately 17bn USD golf tourism revenue. Unfortunately, some global macroeconomic issues are causing headaches for Abu Dhabi:
- Volatility of global oil prices,
- Continuous sluggish global growth,
- depreciating of the Rouble.
The above-mentioned oil price volatility has negatively impacted the real estate, hospitality and construction sector (RHC). Ernst & Young is expecting a slowdown in this sector in the next two years. However, they believe the long-term outlook looks more positive.
Because of the depreciating of the Rouble plus the condition of the Russian market, the Abu Dhabi’s Tourism and Culture Authority focused on other key markets in 2016 such as the UK, China, India, Germany, and Australia.
