The tournament concluded on Saturday with England’s Jordan Smith winning the tournament.
Being the penultimate event of the 2016 European Challenge Tour season, the $350,000 tournament garnered immense interest, with players praising the playing conditions, the facilities and the hospitality offered by the emirates.
Haitham Mattar, CEO of RAKTDA, said: “We are yet to get a full de-brief of the event, but from whatever I have heard from players and fans, everyone seems to love the inaugural RAK 2016 Golf Challenge.
“The first reactions you get is obviously from the Tour players and they have been glowing in their praise. They loved what we had to offer and had some very good words for the golf course. These players have played the world over, so they have experience of various countries and know what they are talking.
“Really, our first objective with the tournament was to showcase the emirates of Ras Al Khaimah and the variety of cultural, hospitality and sporting offerings we have. I think we have been successful in doing that.
“Secondly, we wanted to make sure the world knows about our wonderful golf course. Al Hamra is now truly a championship golf course. We hope to build up on this.
“The initial feedback has been nothing short of extraordinary and we’re already looking forward to delivering an even stronger event in 2017. With the experiences of this year under our belts, we are intent on engaging our industry partners to ensure Ras Al Khaimah delivers an emirate-wide festival of golf in 2017.”
Mattar said he is open to the idea of inviting a marquee player in the future to ramp up the interest further.
“Now that the word is out, we have already started receiving proposals about various things we can do next year. Yes, inviting a star name is a possibility and we will definitely be looking into that,” he added.
Mattar also thanked the number of sponsors who joined hands with the RAKTDA to make the tournament a success. This included Al Hamra Golf Club, RAK Rock, Stevin Rock, RAK Chamber, BMW and Rivoli as event sponsors, and Waldorf Astoria, Voss Water, Wicked, icflix and Nike Golf as event partners.
