DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Tiger Woods is already the world's top-ranked golfer and highest paid athlete. And if all goes according to plan, he'll soon be sporting his biggest trophy yet: a luxury golf course hewn from the sands of the Arabian desert.

The ambitious project, touted as the first course in the world designed by the 2008 U.S. Open champion, remains a work in progress on the outskirts of this Middle Eastern boomtown — much like the rapidly growing city itself.

But the project's chief said Monday that the first phase of the development, which among other unlikely features promises 5 million square feet of locally grown grass and more than 30,000 full-grown imported trees, is on target for completion sometime in the last three months of 2009.