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‘Why do I play golf?’ booms Kim Wood in his deep Australian accent, ‘like everything else I do-because my wife told me to! -and she’s better at it than me; but don’t tell her I admitted that.’
They have been in Dubai for almost two years now, and whilst they will probably end up back in Auss, it will be no time soon. Brooke is expecting their first child early in the year which will signal a short time influx of inlaws, and hopefully allow Kim to get on with his day job in Dubai’s booming financial services sector. It’s a career that he stumbled into following years in IT, and it is what first brought him to Dubai.
‘I came over here to assess some property investments for a client of mine; took one look and though-I think I’ll stay here!. I know it sounds a bit ‘gung ho’ but the worst thing in life is regret, and I really still see this as a land of opportunity’
He’s speaking with a fair degree of authority as he has travelled extensively before he settled down with working trips across the whole of Europe and the United States, working as he went but not always with the same security he currently enjoys.
‘The toughest job I took was in Florida, me and a mate of mine got a job shark fishing, thinking it can’t be that tough, and what could possibly go wrong? Well my first night out there was in a tiny boat 200 nautical miles off shore in raging seas spent hooking up bait on a massive line for the sharks’
‘About 2 am in a scene straight out of ‘Jaws’ we now have to reel this stuff in, and the first one we land is about 9 feet long-that’s almost 3 meters in new money! He was none too pleased to be joining us in the boat I can tell you, and we now have to lasso the shark to bring him in. That was the first one, on the first night of five straight days at sea and I can tell you, it never gets any easier!’. Now I understand why he plays golf, slightly less stressful than Shark wrangling, a good escape from the rigors of the financial services industry and a chance to take things a little less seriously.
‘I like playing at Jebel Ali, it’s a nice course with tight fairways, so you have to hit it straight or you’re in trouble, it’s also only 9 holes as not everyone has the time for a full 18.
That’s why I also play at the Par 3 course at the Emirates Golf Club. It’s a challenge but players of any level can get a good taste for the game, and it only takes about 45 minutes to complete a round, so everyone can get involved without having to take things too seriously.’
