European Senior Tour set to make history

The European Senior Tour will make history in the United Arab Emirates this month.

The Sharjah Senior Golf Masters will become the first European Tour,
European Challenge Tour or Senior Tour event to be played on a nine-hole
golf course at Sharjah Golf & Shooting Club from March 16-18.

Senior Tour competitors will negotiate the nine-hole Peter
Harradine-designed course twice on each tournament day, with the par-3
and par-5 holes being played from varying tees throughout the tournament
week, a format which has never been used during a European
Tour-sanctioned event.

We are delighted to create our own piece of European Tour history

David MacLaren, Head of the European Senior Tour, said:
“With the recent and exciting innovations on the European Tour such as
GolfSixes, and on the European Challenge Tour with their Match Play 9
event in May, we are delighted to create our own piece of European Tour
history at the inaugural Sharjah Senior Golf Masters.

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“Organising an 18-hole professional tournament on a nine-hole golf
course has been no easy task and we are delighted to return to the
United Arab Emirates for the first time since 2000.”

Tournament director Simon Higginbottom will utilise a number of
different tee boxes on the third, fourth, sixth and eighth holes, giving
the 57-player field fresh challenges during the three tournament rounds
– the yardage of the course can vary between 5,922 yards and 7,462
yards, and has been set at 7,051 for this year’s competition.

We can make the experience on each of the holes very different

“We have determined that we would like to play the course differently
each time around,” said Higginbottom. “We can make the experience on
each of the holes very different by moving tees.

The Sharjah Senior Golf Masters is one of potentially four new events
on the Senior Tour Schedule, joining the recently announced European
Tour Properties Senior Classic, English Senior Open and the
to-be-confirmed Dutch Senior Open for 2017.