“In Saudi Arabia we don’t want to just be playing catch-up, we want to be playing leapfrog.”
Since its formation in 2018, Golf Saudi has created opportunities for more people to experience the benefits of golf.
Closing in on his two-year anniversary as CEO of the newest powerhouse in global golf, Golf Digest Middle East was given the opportunity for an exclusive one-one-one with one of the world’s most engaging CEOs, Noah Alireza.
It’s coming up to a couple of years since we’ve caught up in person Noah, how has the journey for Golf Saudi been in what is a relatively young lifespan? It’s been incredible. It’s an honour and a privilege to be serving Saudi Arabia and doing so while doing something I truly love, which is golf. So, these two intersecting makes the job a lot easier on a personal level.
I think that the passion for golf is starting to grow, even though we are at I would say, a humble base, right now in terms of where we are with participants. But the plans are big.
We have an incredible opportunity with a relatively empty canvas to be able to innovate. In Saudi Arabia, we don’t want to just be playing catch-up, we want to be playing leapfrog.
This comes across not only in the sports sector, but across all sectors, and golf is one of those. So, we’re lucky to have the support and we’re lucky to have the vision in a country that inspires all of us by its leadership and we’re excited for what’s to come.
I think everyone is very excited to see that. Do you feel a sense of pride knowing that you’re such a key part in this development of golf in both the professional side and participation across the whole Kingdom. Without question. It’s a true motivator. It enables a new type of thinking in golf.
As a lifelong golfer, having had the privilege to see and experience golf in different countries, I think there’s an important element that we want to introduce in Saudi Arabia and the golf landscape, which is first and foremost, authenticity.
The second element is innovation. We want to invite the world and the best minds to help us define innovation within the game by using Saudi Arabia as a canvas and to deploy what future golf will be like.
This comes in all of its aspects, whether it’s golf course design, agronomy, the way a player experiences a round of golf or on the practice facility and everything that comes with it.
I guess it helps being a fan of golf. How much do you love it? Immensely. And I’ve been playing, less and less as I am busier and busier. That’s because I’m falling in love with other aspects which I never took note of before. Such as agronomy, design, respecting the immense operation of what it takes to get a golf event ready and really appreciating that. I have to say, it’s helped my own game, because the less you play, the less you think. But there’s so many exciting aspects to this job.
How was it that you fell in love with golf? I was super lucky to have hit my first ever golf shot at the driving range at Pebble Beach in California. It was with my father, my mother and us seven siblings, and by the end of the hour, there were only two of us left… me and my father. And as is the case with golf, if you catch the bug, it becomes an obsession, a chase and a pursuit for perfection. Which for a long time, when you have bad round and a bad shot, you say, why am I wasting my time?
But then you realise later on, when you connect the dots backwards, you’ve learned so much from this journey. Patience, resilience, determination, these are all important seeds in anybody’s character development and I’d like to contribute a lot of what I’ve learned in life from rounds
of golf.
Again looking back, golf as a game helped me in my life, and I truly feel that that resonates with almost everybody that plays the game. I think it’s a game for the hardheaded in a positive way.
When you meet a young golfer, they’re often beyond their age because they experienced so much from golf and that’s how I started golf. It’s a lifelong game as we all know and it gives you an advantage to play late into your life, so as long as I’m standing on two feet, I’ll hopefully be swinging a club!
As we briefly touched on, away from the professional side of the game, it seems to be that there are numerous strategies and developments being put in place for golf here in the Kingdom? 100%. Everything that we are doing now, is in one word “access”. I recall in my first interview for Golf Digest Middle East that “access” was the main focus, and it still is the main focus.
We are building a viable and sustainable golf economy. As we all know, golf is an economy.
In the US both directly and indirectly the annual golf market is a $225 billion dollar market. It’s sustainable and driven by the private sector and it’s commercially viable. Our goal at Golf Saudi is to achieve just that: commercial viability and sustainability. In these early stages we are acting as a catalyst, an incubator and an accelerator for the various components of the golf value chain. We want to enable all different stakeholders to become participants in the creation of this viable ecosystem and we know in the beginning there are a lot of things we need to do ourselves to help create a vibrant, multi-stakeholder, ecosystem. That includes the private sector, the public sector, local investors, global investors, real estate developers, the whole lot.
Everything that we are doing links up to the overall vision of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. We are currently finalising our strategy where we quantify all of our initiatives, contribution to GDP, job creation, participation, quality of life, the environment and sustainability and hopefully in another interview down-the-line I can reveal those numbers to you of what we will be contributing in our goals by 2030.
We recently announced a partnership with Topgolf in Saudi Arabia where we are launching three facilities, one in Riyadh, one in the Eastern Province and one in Jeddah. Topgolf, as we’ve seen around the world, is a major contributor to any golf economy. 10% of new golfers in the US come from Topgolf.
If you look at it all as steps in creating the ecosystem, Topgolf is at the beginning of demand creation.
We’re also working in parallel on other types of driving ranges and chip and putt facilities, so things that are accessible to inner city people.
I don’t think the rest of the world realises what the scale of the plans are for Saudi Arabia? Exactly! There are things that I would love to be talking about that we’re working on too, but until they’re at the stage of going from ideation to near creation, I can’t reveal just yet.
But what I could say is that we are using as much as possible from available technologies, to make the game of golf much more enjoyable, not for only the local population but also on a global level too.
What role does the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Aramco’s sponsorship play in elevating the game of golf? They play a massive role, both across the sports sector in general and more specifically golf.
They’ve been incredible partners in all of the events that we have conducted, locally and globally. We continue to foster the relationship and ensure that this relationship is also reciprocal.
We’ve introduced recently in the Aramco Team Series a business to business platform, by linking up with the Future Investment Initiative at all of our events, as well as with the Saudi Ministry of Investment.
We have taken this from the US to the UK to China as well as to Korea and we’ve had important stakeholders attend these events to give speeches and talks.
There’s an uncaptured element for inward and outward foreign direct investment. We hear anecdotally of deals being made as a result of an introduction from one of our golf events. And we’re able to play that role.
We are truly making golf live up to its status as a connector and as a bridge for business, culture, sports and for the environment. These components are great for all our supporters, whether it’s Aramco, PIF or the rest of our partners.
Is there a dream for Golf Saudi, or are we living it now? What does the end look like? In this journey we have a certain clarity on the destination, but the most important part of it is to be thinking differently and building differently.
Going back to the leapfrog concept, it’s important as an organisation and ecosystem to make sure that everything that we do is challenging the current status quo and bringing about innovation along the way. Again, just to tie it in with the two important factors authenticity and innovation, where we’re sitting today at Riyadh Golf Course and hosting this international event, we’ve just gone through a 90-day transformation of the clubhouse and the infrastructure.
I’m super proud and honoured to be working with a team that was able to do this from start to finish. From the interior to the exterior architecture to the landscaping to the agronomy. It was all done by Saudis. And for us to be able to develop and execute that should give you a glimpse of what we are able to achieve in the future.
