Dubai is one place where noise doesn't bother Tiger

	Thirty years ago, Dubai was a small trading center. Now it boasts a rapidly growing population of over 1.3 million people. Andrew Redington/Getty Images

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- It was a lovely week at the Emirates Golf Club. Palms rustled, birds chirped, pile-drivers hammered, tractors roared, construction cranes rattled, saws whined, dumpsters clanged, trucks groaned, and traffic on Sheikh Zayed Road top-dressed the ambient cacophony with a lusty baritone hum. What was vacant desert just a few years ago is now a construction project to beggar the imagination, with dozens and dozens of skyscrapers springing skyward.

It didn't seem to bother Tiger Woods. At no time during the first three rounds of the Dubai Desert Classic did the defending champion back off a shot to glare at a Pakistani crane operator a half-mile away. Not once did Tiger's caddie, Steve Williams, chide an Egyptian job foreman for spilling 10 tons of rebar while Tiger was over a putt.

Why the benign tolerance from the World Number One? It could have something to do with the huge contract he signed two months ago with Tatweer, a subsidiary of a holding company owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai. The terms of the deal have not been released, but published guesses have Tiger pocketing from $25-45 million. Tatweer, in return, gets to name its new housing development "The Tiger Woods Dubai" and claim ownership of Al Ruwaya, the first Tiger Woods-designed golf course.

The golf course deal had been in the works for a couple of years, and local sources say that Sheikh Mohammed had to fend off a strong bid from Chinese interests, who were equally determined to land Tiger's first course design. ("Money was not the big motive for Tiger," says businessman and seven-time UAE golf champion Ismail Sharif. "There were other countries that would offer one more zero to get him.") The original plans had Tiger's course going offshore -- probably on Palm Jumeirah, a cluster of man-made islands shaped to look like a palm tree from the air. Sheikh Mohammed reportedly vetoed that plan, arguing that it would be redundant to put one landmark -- the first Woods course -- on another landmark, the islands.