Korean female golf stars will gather in Saudi Arabia next week. 17 Korean players will participate in the ‘Aramco Saudi Ladies International Presented by Public Investment Fund’, which will be held at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club as a European women’s professional golf tour tournament from the 16th.
Aramco is the state oil company of Saudi Arabia, and the Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the Saudi national wealth fund. Last year, the men’s professional golf league LIV was launched based on PIF’s enormous financial power. The Saudi Ladies International, which started as the first women’s professional golf tournament in Saudi Arabia in 2020, has increased its total prize money five times this year. It went from $1 million last year (about 1.262 billion won) to $5 million this year (about 6.31 billion won).
Although it is a European women’s tour event, only 60 tour members participate. 10 players were invited, and 50 non-members ranked 300th or higher in the world were allowed to participate, challenging not only the US LPGA tour but also the Korean KLPGA tour players. Inji Jeon (28), Hyo-joo Kim (27), Jeong-eun Lee (26), A-lim Kim (27), Hae-ran Yoo (21), Eun-hee Ji (36), Ji-eun Shin (30) of the LPGA and So-mi Lee (24), Hee-jeong Lim (22) of the KLPGA , Hong Jung-min (21), Jung Yun-ji (22), Lim Jin-hee (24), Song Ga-eun (22), Jo A-yeon (22), Seong Yu-jin (22), Ha Min-song (26), and Hwang Jeong-mi (23) are on the list. World No. 1 Lydia Ko (25, New Zealand), No. 4 Ataya Titikkun (19, Thailand), and No. 7 Lexi Thompson (27, USA) will also participate.
The tournaments with more total prize money than the Saudi Ladies International are the five major US Women’s Open ($10 million), KPMG Women’s PGA Championship ($9 million), AIG Women’s Open ($7.3 million), and Amundi Evian Championship (650 million dollars) on the LPGA Tour. 10,000 dollars), the Chevron Championship (5.1 million dollars), and the final CME Group Tour Championship (7 million dollars). On the European women’s tour, this tournament has the most prize money after the AIG Women’s Open and the Evian Championship, which are jointly held with the LPGA Tour. The tournament with the largest total prize money on the KLPGA Tour in the 2023 season is the Hanwha Classic, which cost 1.667 billion won. 메이저놀이터
The prize money for winning the Saudi Ladies International is $750,000 (approximately 946 million won). The LPGA tour held its season opener last month, but is on a month-long break until the Thailand tournament on the 23rd. The KLPGA tour kicks off in April. For LPGA and KLPGA tour players, this tournament is an opportunity to check their winter training performance against high-level players from around the world in major-level prize money competitions while their tours are on break.
This year, the Saudi Ladies International matched the total prize money with the PIF Saudi International (Asian Tour) men’s competition, which ended at the same place on the 5th. Lydia Ko, who won the 2021 Saudi Ladies International, her first tournament after her marriage last December and the first tournament of the 2023 season, said, “I am very happy that golf is moving in the direction of equalizing men’s and women’s prize money.”
In this season’s European women’s tour, five ‘Aramco Team Series Presented by PIF’ competitions are scheduled in the United States and Saudi Arabia. A total prize pool of $1 million is at stake for each tournament.