Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the host with the most this week as the European Tour rolls into money-laden Abu Dhabi.
His Highness, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the Emir of Abu Dhabi, President of the United Arab Emirates and the Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and as such, he oversees about $875 billion in assets, his family worth is in the neighborhood of $150 billion. It’s good to be the Emir.
So its a drop in the Abu Dhabi bucket to throw a million bucks at world’s No. 1 Brooks Koepka to entice him to tear himself away from that nasty knee rehab stuff to show up and play in this week’s European Tour gathering, which, by the way, is a Rolex event. It means that in addition to the cool million that Brooksie has had wired into his fat bank account, there’s another $7.7 million or so in prize money to be had.
As dicey as things can get in the Middle East, these stops are a lifeline for the European Tour. In addition to Koepka, The Emir’s underlings have managed to lure Pat Cantlay (world’s No. 7), Tommy Fleetwood (world’s No. 10) and Bryson The Snail DeChambeau (no. 14) into the desert.
The Emir has toned down his public duties these days. At age 71, he’s turned a lot of that stuff to his brother — Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan — so maybe it’s The Sheikh who signs off on all those trans-continental wire transfers for the fat appearance fees.
The Big Cat, Tiger Woods, typically gets $3,000,000 dangled in front of him by the Sultans of Sand but when you earned more than $650 million in the last decade, three million isn’t all that enticing if it means crossing multiple time zones. Sorry, Eldrick politely said thanks but no-thanks.
But we get our first look at Koepka, who was somehow wrangled into playing a few holes earlier in the week with 15-year-old Josh Hill, the world’s No. 1 amateur who played his way into this event with a victory in a MENA event, whatever that is.
The kid claims he beat Koepka in their eight-hole foray.
“Good to learn from him and learn how he practices throughout the week and how he prepares for a tournament like this,” the youngster said. “I asked him like how he practices leading up to tournaments, leading up to Majors. He’s so nice, laid back and you can ask him whatever you want. I outdrove him on five as well, he didn’t say anything but maybe if I outdrive him on the back nine I’ll say ‘see you later Brooks.’”
As for Koepka, he was polite about it all.
“I enjoyed it,” Koepka said of his round with Hill. “Josh is a good player. Hopefully learned something. He beat me in an eight-hole match yesterday, so he got the better of me, which I’m sure he enjoyed, as he should. It’s cool. It’s always fun to get to play with these young kids, and you really see in ten years when I’m close to being on my way out, all these kids that will be up and winning a bunch.”
On a more serious note, Koepka talked about his recovery from his left knee injury, which he aggravated at the CJ Cup.
“In Korea I re-tore it, and the kneecap had moved into the fat pad,” Koepka said. “That’s excruciating. It’s a lot of pain. It’s not fun.”
His rehab and recovery kept him out of the Presidents Cup, and he didn’t start hitting balls again until just before Christmas.
Koepka said he’s feeling better. “It (left knee) does feel stable, which leaving Korea and all the way up to about a month and a half ago, it felt like it could go either way. It could go left, out, back, it could go any way. Even when I got the green light, I just didn’t know whether it was going to feel right, whether you’re going to be the same, how is it going to feel.”
Koepka and his left knee will get a lot of attention starting Thursday.
How will he fare?
Really doesn’t matter because the Emir and friends have already bestowed a cool million on the world’s No. 1.
