By Kent Gray
Othman Almulla hasn’t found it easy walking in the soft-spiked footsteps of golfing giants but it won’t stop him dreaming big, trailblazing dreams.

The pioneering Saudi professional will make his seventh European Tour start on Thursday with the eyes of an expectant Kingdom on him and personal history adding even more weight at the 2nd Saudi International powered by Softbank Investment Advisers.

It’s daunting putting your game out there with the likes of Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Phil Mickelson making it look so easy. But the 33-year-old is determined to show he can compete at the top level and one day turn his favourite dream, the one where he proudly marches into an Olympic Games opening ceremony behind his nation’s flag, into glorious reality.

It won’t be at Tokyo 2020 and with a world ranking of 2080, Almulla acknowledges he has a way to go to reach Paris in four years’ time or perhaps Los Angeles after that. But he also knows to walk with giants, first you must take small steps. It starts this week.

“It’s such an honour for me to represent Saudi internationally: now it’s time for me to give back and hopefully start performing at a higher level,” he said.

“I’m 100% ready to push on to reach that. I’m putting things in place day-by-day, month-by-month, tournament-by-tournament that are going to let me show signs of what I can do in the game of golf and what I can really achieve.

“That continues at the Saudi International where I want to put in a couple of competitive rounds. If I do that and play how I know I can play, then hopefully I’ll make the weekend. That’s the goal.”

Making the cut at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club would indeed be a giant leap, especially when you crunch the numbers from Almulla’s six previous European Tour starts. There is no flowering over his 0-6 cuts made stat, nor a stroke average of 80.16 across his 12 rounds on the Old World circuit thus far. The best score in the last six rounds was an 80 in the opening round at Royal Greens last year, followed by an 81 to finish 21-over and just a place above the foot of the leaderboard.

Almulla has returned home from the OMEGA Dubai Desert Classic with more to ponder after rounds of 83-88 left him 27 over and 25 shots adrift of the halfway snip last week.

But chalk it all up to experience. Almulla certainly believes he is better for the experience of his professional debut at Royal Greens 12 months ago.

“It would be very, very easy to be put in an uncomfortable position playing alongside and against the best golfers in the world. But you have to be comfortable in that uncomfortable position, and that’s what I’ve learned in this last year,” the

“Yes, they are the best golfers in the world, but we’re all trying to make it; I’m trying to achieve my goals and so are they. I take it as a learning experience, and that’s the most important thing. Yes, these players are at a much higher level than I am, but that’s the level I want to get to. All I can do is go out there, do my best, and hope that the work I’ve put in this year will put me in a position to compete.”

The Dhahran-born golfers also figures if it is good enough for Tiger Woods to suffer from first tee nerves, it’s good enough for him too.

“Tiger Woods is the best golfer on the planet and he says the day he doesn’t feel nervous on the first tee is the day he’ll stop playing golf. I take respite in that – knowing that if he’s the best player in the world and he feels nervous, then it’s okay for me to maybe feel a bit of that too.

“Overall, I think it’s all about reminding myself how great an opportunity this is, and that there’s people supporting me regardless of how I play this week. The big thing is to learn from the experience.”

Regardless of what transpires in King Abdullah Economic City this week, Almulla is looking forward to continuing working at his craft on the MENA Tour this season with the regional circuit beginning in Aqaba, Jordan, immediately after the Saudi International. A vast improvement on his 92nd placing in last season’s Journey to Jordan moneylist is the driver and he’ll take great memories from last season’s penultimate event in Ras Al Khaimah where he birdied the last three holes to make the cut before roaring up to 23rd place with a closing round of 65.

“My aim is to hopefully show a bit of form this year. I want to have a high finish on the MENA Tour Order of Merit, which will then give me opportunities playing on some of the bigger tours. Within the next two years I would like to get either an Asian Tour card or a European Tour card, that’s the main goal, and, for the decade, what I really want to do is play in the Olympics. That’s a massive dream of mine.”