Golf.com's Middle East course spy reports on two new courses in Abu Dhabi, which is challenging Dubai to become the region's premier golf destination.

As you head north out of Abu Dhabi along the city's palm-lined, waterfront corniche, the world's lone seven-star hotel, Emirates Palace, is in your rearview mirror and Dubai lies 75 minutes ahead. In recent years, most golfers finding themselves in Abu Dhabi would need to make that drive north to get in a decent round.

One of the only alternatives was a "browns" course that was little more than a patch of desert with some smoothed areas around the pins. Players carried a patch of Astroturf on which they could place the ball before each shot. It wasn't exactly Hilton Head.