More than most of the populated parts of the planet, the UAE sports season is quite condensed.

Some of the indigenous sports — well, soccer, anyway, sometimes at barely a walking pace — compete for most of the year. But the heat is too brutal about seven months out of 12 for most anything else, and our outside interests become local for about five months, beginning with this one.

And this was a very big sports day for the country as well as The National. Because it was the final day of the World Tour Championship in Dubai, the biggest golf event of the year, and the final race of the Formula One season, which had whizzed through Abu Dhabi only three weeks before.

Reporting on major events in many ways is the easiest aspect of running a sports section. You get your people to the scene, you make sure you have space in the newspaper, deadlines as friendly as possible and an adequately staffed production crew. And then you execute.

Putting out an interesting section in July when not much is going on … now that requires imagination. But those sections, “duller” than the news-heavy sections, get less credit. And the reporting of scheduled events gets more.  That’s how it is.

As it turned out, the scheduled events were quite interesting, and that made the section more fun, but not more difficult.

The golf tournament, which doesn’t get much attention in the States because it is a European Tour event, began with the world’s No. 1 player, Rory McIlroy, and No. 2, Luke Donald, tied for the lead at the Earth Course up in the Jumeirah area of Dubai.

No. 1 vs No. 2. Hard to beat that. Though that matchup didn’t last long, as Donald faded from contention.

What made things compelling was Justin Rose going off. He shot a 62, 10 under par, breaking the course record by two shots, and he led by a stroke in the clubhouse with McIlroy playing on 17.

McIlroy being McIlroy, which at the moment is almost like being Tiger Woods circa 2000 (when he won three majors), well, someone slapping up a 62 was not going to faze him. He birdied the final five holes to win by two shots, and it made for a compelling day of golf, even without a single American in the field.

The decks were cleared for the big late event, the Brazil Grand Prix from Sao Paulo.

The National is one of the few newspapers in the world that covers the whole of the F1 season. Our man Gary Meenaghan has seen every race save one in two seasons, and he was in Brazil for this one.

Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, with the season championship on the line. Vettel spinning early and falling to the back of the pack. Alonso nursing inferior equipment. Occasional rain. Constantly changing track positions. If the race stopped now, Vettel wins. If the race ended now, Alonso wins. Back and forth.

It ended with Alonso second and Vettel sixth, with the latter winning the championship by only three points. Had Alonso finished first, he would have been the champion. Or had Vettel finished eighth, Alonso would have been the champion. It was quite nerve-racking, even for observers with only a passing interest in the sport. (Like this one.)

We had a midnight deadline to get this into the print product, and the race ended at about 10 p.m. UAE time, and our guys did their thing, and it turned out well.

We were congratulated a day later for a job well done, and it had been. But sometimes the schedule makes you look better than you are. The golfers and drivers helped us be good.