What makes it really special is that it will be the No.1’s number one – yet another milestone in Dubai’s march towards its global domination of the leisure world.

Speaking on a visit to Dubai to check the progress of his creation, Tiger is clearly excited about his first foray into the world of golf course design.

“To be part of this has been a life long dream of mine,” he says. “This is very exciting and it’s amazing what has transpired. It has been phenomenal to be a part of this process, to see this desert transformed. You would think it was flat desert out there, but there is over 100 feet of elevation change.

“As I have got into designing it now in the real world and not just on paper, it is obviously a lot more difficult than I thought, a lot more goes into it than just putting something on paper. A lot more detail, and it has been a great learning experience and something I actually love. I go to the office every day looking at maps and trying to figure out how can we create something a little bit differently here?”

Even by Dubai’s high standards it is an ambitious project and Tiger Woods Dubai when it opens in September, 2009 will become one of the world’s – if not the most – exclusive golfing destinations.

At the moment there’s not much to see just acres and acres of desert sands drifting in the wind on a site four times the size of London’s Hyde Park. But Tiger and his partners, Tatweer, which has more than 170 billion dollars in assets, are able to visualise a 7,800-yard course of true championship quality.

Then of course there will be 197 luxury residences bounding the course, a boutique hotel, designed by Elie Saab, a restaurant featuring three-star, Michelin Star chef Guy Savoy, and a golf academy.

Here the category listing of the homes gives you an ideaof what to expect before you get to the price list. There are executive villas, mansions and palaces. And you will still have to pay a joining fee for the golf and an annual subscription even though your new home will cost you anything between £10 million and £30 million.

The job ahead is equally monumental as project director Abdulla Al Gurg explains: “We have pioneered new techniques in construction and design to overcome the challenges we face in transforming 55 million square feet of desert into a green space. Planting more than 30,000 trees and 480,000 shrubs has required us to create the largest plant nursery in the region. We have also developed the ground breaking water treatment system; this cleans and recycles 30,000 cubic metres of Dubai’s wastewater every day. We need this to sustain the lush vegetation of the Tiger Woods Dubai.”

But what the golfing world is really waiting to see is what a Tiger Woods’ course will be like having seen him tame so many of the greatest ones in his meteoric career. The emergence of Tiger led to many tournament venues having to tinker with their layouts to combat his awesome power and accuracy and the unrelenting progress of golfing technology.

What of his golfing genius will translate to the turf?

One thing for sure, unlike many courses built in the desert, the Al Ruwaya track will not have great waste areas, which on some desert courses can run the length of the fairways. Instead there will be lush fairways with a number of water hazards.

“I have always thought playability and being able to use the ground as an asset is something that we have kind of gone away from,” Tiger explains. “The modern game has been all up in the air and hit to specific numbers. I don’t like what we have done with target golf.

“I enjoy what links golf has to offer. I enjoy allowing the player to utilise the ground as an ally and that is what you will see here. We want this golf course to play fast, quick, and we have plenty of room for the ball to manoeuvre and roll and move.

“As you go through this routing, you will see that a lot of the holes, virtually every hole, has an inlet into the greens, a way to utilise the ground, to run the ball into the green and use the configurations. It is a golf course in which you can use run-up areas, use hills, use our topography to help you get the ball onto the green, onto the fairways and I think it will be fun for all levels of players.”

This was very much a blank canvas. “The course here is a desert, it is free flowing, because obviously the wind blows sand around. So it does tend to shift where some of our placements are and that has been one of the challenges.”

During his career Tiger has played on almost every continent and he was determined to understand what each had to offer. From his experiences he realised that the Dubai property resembled the Australian sand belt in Melbourne with a similar type of terrain and drainage and he drew a lot of inspiration from those courses.

While his course looks in good health he admits to ‘frustration’ as he undergoes rehabilitation after his knee operation following his courageous victory in the US Open at Torrey Pines in June. At the moment he limits himself to some putting practice and while inspecting the site he appeared to favour walking on impacted rather than soft sand.

As yet he doesn’t know what his schedule for next year will be. “That is one of the most frustrating things,” he says. “I will start hitting golf balls at the beginning of the year and then from there I don’t know how my healing is going to be, whether my knee swells as I progress through my practice sessions. All of that is unknown. It is frustrating for me because I usually have everything kind of planned out in preparation for events, but I really don’t know.”

But in Dubai it was his new creation that was at the forefront of his thoughts. “I want this to be an oasis, an escape from the city,” he adds. “I want people to be able to feel as if they are getting away from the hustle and bustle and entering something that is so serene and so surreal that they will always remember the experience.

“When I play, I have a very creative style and what I really enjoy about this process is that I get to use my creativity to provide an experience that other players who play on my golf courses will actually love.”

Costing $130 million to construct, Al Ruwaya will be one of the five most expensive courses in the world and with Tiger’s renowned attention to detail will become one of the most sought after golfing destinations.

So how long before it gets its first prestigious professional tournament? Stay tuned.