Environmentalists rarely need a second invitation to raise their voices, but the grumblings over golf course development seem more muted now than ever. You don't need a Stanford education to work out that you need a lot of water to irrigate a golf course and that the substance is rather hard to come by in the desert.

They will bring the water from elsewhere, and while the PR team will insist that they aren't affecting the supply to the poorer surrounding areas, it's hard to see just how.

You can't blame The Striped One. He was bound to get involved in course design sooner or later and a Middle Eastern payday is not something he was ever likely to shake a paw at.

It is a simple case of money over matter. Until the supply of oil in the Middle East dries up, the Sheiks and Sultans of the area will continue to earn absurd sums. It appears that the growing fascination in such areas is in typically western pursuits.

This is evidenced by the recent purchase of Manchester City Football Club, the gilt-edged invitations to foreign sportsmen to swap their nationality for Qatar or UAE passports and, of course, the rash of golf courses planned for the coming years.

Building a golf course in the desert makes about as much sense as building a housing development on the ocean, which, by the way, the Dubaians have already done. Tired of hearing about other countries and their gorgeous islands, these developers made their own. In the shape of a palm tree. Because they can.

The tour operators in the Greek Archipelago may not yet be quaking in their boots, but this is just the beginning.

What might be coming to an end, however, is the reticence of environmentalists over golf development. Green issues have never been more prioritised, and it won't be long before the ire of the world's tree huggers is focused squarely on such projects as Tiger's oasis in the desert.