Three years ago, Rory McIlroy was sitting at home watching golf on television and thinking, 'I'd love to be able to do that one day'.
Now, in what seems like no time at all, he is the one being watched and on Sunday could be crowned Europe's new No.1, at 20 the youngest since Seve Ballesteros in 1976.
And there is more. The Northern Ireland star could also become the world No.6 and more than 1.6 million pounds richer.
"I'm sort of just living out my dream and I couldn't be happier," said McIlroy on the eve of the inaugural Dubai World Championship, where the first prize of over 744,000 pounds would also earn him an Order of Merit bonus of just under 900,000 pounds.
"To be sitting here now 13th in the world, leading the Race to Dubai, I'm just really enjoying it."
"This is what I've always wanted to do. If I can play the rest of my career happy and realising how lucky I am to be playing a great game like this for a living then I think I'll be doing okay."
Taking the tournament title is obviously the dream way of clinching the money list title, but because of his consistency this season McIlroy could even stay top of the table by finishing 58th out of 58 this weekend.
Lee Westwood is 114,000 pounds behind and cannot afford to finish worse than seventh if he is to recapture the crown he won in 2000.
German Martin Kaymer is a further 70,000 pounds back and will miss out if he does not make the top four, while Ross Fisher, the only other player left in the race, has a 388,000 pounds deficit and has to be first or second.
What makes it most exciting is that the cash on offer is so huge - even with the 25 per cent cut because of the economic downturn in the region - that McIlroy, Westwood and Kaymer all know that victory on the Greg Norman-designed Earth course will guarantee them top spot.
Norman himself was on site on Wednesday to see how things were developing on what is the second longest lay-out in European Tour history and on what, it has to be said, still bears some resemblance to a building site.
Speaking of McIlroy, whose rapid progress after turning professional a mere 26 months ago has prompted him to take up US Tour membership next season, Norman said: "What Rory has been doing over the last 12 months is phenomenal to say the least."
"He looks like he's way experienced beyond his years and his future, you can almost say, is cast in stone in a lot of ways."
Norman was 27 when he topped the Order of Merit in 1982, Colin Montgomerie was 30 when he took it for the first of his record eight times, Ernie Els 34, Padraig Harrington 35 and last year Robert Karlsson was 39.
Just to underline what McIlroy is now on the cusp of achieving, Tony Jacklin never won the money list and Jose Maria Olazabal and Sergio Garcia have never done it either.
With not as much rough as many would like to have seen for such an important climax to the season, the main defences of the course are the bunkers - with special sand brought all the way to the desert from