Ever heard the one about the Saudi golfer? Let me answer that for you. No. You haven’t. No one has. But they soon will, if Othman Almulla has anything to do with it.
“I will be on tour. I will win tournaments and I will be a world champion,” he tells me one sweltering morning looking out over Dubai Creek. Not with the braggadocio and flex of Brooks Koepka, mind you. It’s more like I’ve accidentally interrupted his stream of consciousness. The mantra he says when he looks in the mirror every morning or stands over every shot.
It’s often been said that golf is a game of inches, and the six most important inches are the ones between your ears. The game is 95% mental and five percent physical, but – and here’s the catch – the only person who can truly believe that fact is you.
“You play golf, right?” says Othman. “You know how dark it gets. In what other game can you go from the most confident person in the world to the least confident in a matter of seconds…?”
This is golf. A fragile existence that teeters between failure and glory with every swing. Doesn’t matter if it’s the Open Championship or Saturday with your mates. And this assumes that all the basic trappings of the game are already in place. Like grass, for example.
But when Othman first stepped foot on a golf course, well, it wasn’t really a golf course. There was no grass, he played off a rubber mat and with a set of borrowed clubs. And, while he might have been the only Saudi Arabian hitting balls at flags that day, he did, by his own admission, “really suck. I mean, all the other kids all kicked my ass.”
So, this is why it is even more remarkable that in 2019, aged 32, Almulla became Saudi Arabia’s first professional golfer.
“Our culture focuses on strong studies, get a good job, get married, have kids, have a good career, and retire happy,” says Othman. “But there’s more to life than living in a box. So, when I made my decisions, everyone was against me. It was crazy.”
The first of those decisions came in the summer of 1999. Othman was a 15-year-old teenager with pace to burn and enough skills to be scouted by the Eastern Province as a future soccer star. “My dream was to represent Saudi and play in a World Cup. I was about to sign for the under-18s,” he recalls.
And then a bum report card hits. His grades had slipped. Not a lot, but enough. Enough for his parents to remind him that there are consequences to every action and that the summer of ’99, would be devoted to his studies, with soccer taking a backseat.
One day that summer a friend calls and says, ‘do you want to go golfing?’ and somehow, he found himself on Aramco’s Rolling Hills golf club, and his story began.
Tough love from your parents…but it all worked out, I guess?
“I’ve always had a very open, transparent, strong relationship with my parents. I’ve been treated like an equal. But listen, my parents were trendsetters themselves. They both worked at Aramco. In fact, my mom was one of the first females to work for Aramco. Then my dad got a scholarship to America, but they didn’t offer her one.
“So, she quit and went to school in the States, with me in tow. My dad was doing industrial security and she did communications. I guess it taught them to be independent and to believe in their journey. Make hard decisions and live the way you want to.”
Do you see that spirit in yourself?
“I think there’s something really positive to be taken from backing yourself even when others disagree, and my parents created an environment that allowed me to do that.”
How did you manage to improve? It’s not like there were teachers, driving ranges. Heck, even YouTube was just a baby!
“I don’t think I really, really loved it in the beginning, but I didn’t like losing, so I just kept practising. I started getting better – well, hitting it in the right direction and then when soccer season started again, I found myself still wanting to play golf. Then I got lucky. I bumped into three guys playing and one of them was the national team coach, who said they were just starting a junior team and would I like to play.”
Othman’s parents were initially reluctant to let their teenage son head outside of the community to practise at another desert golf course, but one signed letter from the government later and the Saudi golf committee was born, putting together tournaments and training camps in Dubai where Othman could hone his skills. He started to beat the men in competitions and creep into the top 10 of the Arab Championships and a plan started to form… “I told my parent ’There’s something here. I don’t know what it is, but I can be something in this game. I can create history for Saudi. I can do something special.”
Did you convince them?
“It took some selling. I put a pitch together. I told them I wanted to go to golf academy as it might help me get a scholarship in the States. I casually left the brochure for them to read and then, when we had the sit-down conversation, I straight up said ‘I want to be the best Arab golfer. I don’t just want to be the best Saudi golfer, I want to be the best golfer in the Arab world, and I need this training, because there’s no training here.”
So, fast forward to getting on the US college circuit and being groomed to the best Arab golfer in the world then?
“Ha! I wish. There are 100 golfers all trying to be professional and two tournaments a week. My golf game really started to take off and I’d be crushing it in regional events, but I still wasn’t on the golf team. So, I went for tryouts. It’s a four round qualifier and I’m leading by 10 going into the last round and the coach comes up to me and says there’s a technical issue with the NCAA because you missed a semester [Othman was ill] so, I’m afraid we can’t offer you the spot even if you qualify.
What did you do?
“I knew I wanted to play full-time. I wasn’t 100% invested in my education, but I was 100% invested in my goals, so I paused my scholarship and moved back home. I got support from the Ministry of Sport, who set me up in Dubai and I threw myself into my dream.”
Cue the montage of practicing, trophies and anthemic 80s rock….
“Almost the opposite. I just I put way too much pressure on myself because I knew how big of a risk I was taking. And no one believed that could do it. Not one person other than my parents.
“I got so much bad advice because no one was had even taken this path before. It had never been done in the Middle East and I had no one to ask. Everyone I asked was like a ten handicap. I made a lot of mistakes.”
At this time, you’re still quite young and an amateur. How did you handle it?
“I wasn’t mature enough to ask for help when I need needed to ask for help. I was always so confident and always on an upward curve and then it evaporated. I qualified I for the Qatar Masters and then I couldn’t break 80. I had no clue. And I fall into this deep, dark depression. I’ve never talked about this. I was in a very, very bad place. And alone. I didn’t want to tell my parents. I mean, they were so supportive, and I just fell into this deep, dark hole…”
What was going through your mind?
“I used to worry about letting my parents down. I never heard any of that from them. But inside my own head, I told myself this a lot. Carrying the burden. Internalising it. Digging a deeper hole.
“I used to imagine what people would say to them. ‘You guys are crazy letting him ruin his life. What are you doing? He’s going to be on welfare taking your money when you’re retired because he doesn’t have an education.’
“I always knew they supported me. But I had to prove they were right.”
The golfer’s existential crisis is a rite of passage. You hope for a short one. A ripped shirt, thrown club or quietly sobbing to yourself at the traffic lights on the drive home. But sometimes it is total devastation. There are golfers who have won the toughest competitions in the world and then been unable to make a five-foot putt weeks later. And there are those who choose to walk away.
Othman decided that something needed to change. That he needed to walk away. And to really put this into context, the year before he was on the first page of the leaderboard at the Dubai Desert Classic, where Henrik Stenson narrowly pipped Ernie Els and a certain Tiger ‘Eldrick’ Woods.
He returned to school in Houston, Texas to study finance. He was still the #1 ranked player in the Middle East, so was obliged to play in national championships. “I’d practice a week before just to not shoot 100 but had zero expectations.”
In 2015, he returned home to Saudi and starts working for Aramco in the contracts department. “I was kicking it. I was doing such a great job at work, presenting to management and I just felt…empty, honestly. Something was missing in my life.
Like a siren’s call, the links beckoned, and he finds himself leading the GCC championships in Kuwait by two on the last hole when another teaching moment appears.
Othman hits it out of bounds and makes triple bogey to lose by one.
“I went to the bathroom, and I cried. I cried so hard. I looked at myself and said I had a decision to make. I could quit and say this is not for me or I could decide that this is what I want to do no matter how emotional the ride.”
2019 was a big year. Othman finally decided to turn pro, and it was the inaugural Saudi Invitational. The Kingdom’s first foray into mainstream professional golf.
Three short years later and KSA has lit a fire under the golfing world through its support of LIV GOLF, a new global golf tour that is looking to refresh the game with new formats, bigger prize funds and some added chutzpah.
Most recent headlines have been derived from watching a handful of the world’s best players shuffle uncomfortably through press conferences. Sadly, there has been little to no reporting on Golf Saudi’s bigger vision.
Very interesting time to be a Saudi Arabian golfer, isn’t it?
“I think it’s a very interesting time to be a Saudi Arabian. The country is dramatically shifting in a way no other country has in the past century. I’m seeing a lot of my countrymen and countrywomen doing incredible things in different fields.
“There’s a big push for female empowerment, a big push for entrepreneurship, for all different sports. It’s so it’s awesome to be a part of that.”
How do you think LIV Golf is going to shake things up?
“It’s creating excitement around the sport and it’s going to be very transformative not only for the PGA Tour and the European Tour, but also the Asian tour. Because now the best players on the Asian tour are getting opportunities to play for life-changing money. It’s going to accelerate the growth of Asian golf think, and golf in the Middle East.
How do you put that perspective across when the media coverage is so negative?
“The game of golf is pure. No matter if you’re playing on the LIV tour, the European tour, Asian tour, the game of golf is pure. We all love it, and it will be that passion that will endure.”
Do you see this rippling through Saudi culture? Will there be Othman 2.0?
“I want to inspire that. I don’t want to have a five-year career as a professional golfer, make a couple of cuts, and I call it quits. I want to leave a lasting legacy.
“And that’s why I love to give back. I started a program teaching Saudis golf. It’s not about creating champions but sharing my love for the sport. And I had 150 males and females come along and I know Golf Saudi has some awesome programmes being launched in schools and academies.”
Do you still harbour the dreams that started you down this path?
“Yeah. I’ve invested way too much to just stop here. I know I can compete in the Middle East and on the Asian Tour. I’m beginning to compete on the smaller tours in Europe. And I will continue to work hard and take on each hurdle.
“You must be so blindingly confident, irrespective of results. That’s just what we go through as golfers and that’s why I love this game.
“I will be a world champion one day. And I’m so comfortable saying that because I see it.”
Listening to Othman you may be mistaken into thinking this is a sad story. It is not. It is the opposite of that. It’s a story of endeavour, of maturity, and inspiration.
He has been the vanguard of Saudi golf for so long. Most of the journey has been solitary, but now he looks around with optimism and pride. There are golf courses being built, programs in schools, Saudi men and women attending lessons, events on the Asian Tour, Ladies Tour and, of course, the LIV Golf global league.
In many ways, the Golf Saudi story is Othman’s story.
It started with nothing. Not even grass. Just a whacking great hunk of ambition, a drive to succeed and a Kevlar attitude. It travelled the world to draw on the different insights and experiences and now it is looking to achieve great things and inspire future generations.
There will be tears, trials, and tribulations along the way, but that is just golf. And, as Othman says, that is why we love it.
Read more on Othman Almulla in Esquire Saudi’s Summer Issue, on newsstands now across Saudi Arabia
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL ASATER
FASHION & STYLING BY LAURA JANE BROWN
PRODUCTION BY JODY HASSAN
HAIR & MAKE-UP BY JEAN KAIROUZ
STYLING ASSISTANTS BY LEA MICHAULT AND OMBELINE PENCOLE