{"id":18404,"date":"2019-12-14T16:06:52","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T12:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/?p=18404"},"modified":"2019-12-14T16:06:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T12:06:52","slug":"historic-new-ladies-european-tour-event-announced-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/historic-new-ladies-european-tour-event-announced-in-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic New Ladies European Tour Event Announced In Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia has become renowned at breaking boundaries in sport, a trend which continues with today\u2019s announcement of a fully sanctioned Ladies European Tour (LET) event set to take place in the Kingdom from the 19<sup>th<\/sup> to the 22<sup>nd<\/sup> March 2020. The tournament, which will carry a USD$1 million prize fund, will be staged in collaboration with Golf Saudi and the Saudi Golf Federation.<\/p>\n<p>The event is a watershed moment for the country, and will mark the first time that professional female golfers have played competitively in the country, breaking new ground in its ongoing transformation as part of Vision 2030.<\/p>\n<p>The 72-hole stroke play competition, which will be broadcast domestically and to more than 340 million homes across more than 55 countries worldwide, will inspire a new generation of golfers throughout the Kingdom. A field of 108 LET professionals will contest for one of the richest prizes on the LET Schedule at Royal Greens Golf &amp; Country Club, near Jeddah, on the country\u2019s stunning Red Sea coast.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting upon hosting the event for the first time and setting new precedents within the sport, <strong>His Excellency Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Chairman of the Saudi Golf Federation and Golf Saudi, said:<\/strong> <em>\u201cWe are delighted to be creating history by hosting the inaugural ladies professional tournament in March. I hope the tournament will inspire many women to take up the great game of golf and awaken their interest in this wonderful sport. We warmly welcome all the players to the Kingdom and wish everyone a rewarding experience in our magical country.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Royal Greens Golf &amp; Country Club, which is set within King Abdullah Economic City, also plays host to the European Tour\u2019s Saudi International powered by Softbank Investment Advisers. At the first staging in 2019, Major champion Dustin Johnson emerged victorious and the former World #1 will return to defend his title against a world-class field that also includes the likes of Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Tony Finau and Henrik Stenson, in January.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI am incredibly excited by this announcement and it is an honour for the Tour to be part of history in bringing the first-ever professional women\u2019s golf event to Saudi Arabia,\u201d<\/em> said <strong>Ladies European Tour, CEO, Alexandra Armas<\/strong>. <em>\u201cConfirmation of adding Saudi Arabia to our schedule for 2020 is an exciting prospect for everyone at the Ladies European Tour and having seen the quality of the event staging for the Saudi International, I am sure this will be a fantastic experience for our players.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As well as confirming the historic tournament, Golf Saudi today announced it is working with several LET stars in order to promote golf to domestic audiences and to enhance the visibility of Saudi\u2019s golf development programme and its golf tourism offer internationally. The UK\u2019s Carly Booth, Amy Boulden and Rachel Drummond, and Swedish pair Camilla Lennarth and Isabella Deilert will each wear the Golf Saudi logo as ambassadors of the programme.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead to the inaugural LET event, <strong>three-time Tour winner and Golf Saudi Ambassador, Carly Booth<\/strong> said: <em>\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to being part of history with the other ladies on the tour and of course to competing over the Royal Greens course. I have visited Saudi Arabia on a number of occasions and been lucky enough to spend some time teaching local women and girls how to play; they have been so enthusiastic and I am sure that seeing professional golfers compete in their country will inspire them to take up the game and strive for their dreams.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The 2020 event will showcase Saudi Arabia\u2019s natural assets, as well as prioritising the country\u2019s drive to increase golf participation significantly in the years to come. The Kingdom already has a strong track record when it comes to staging high-level sporting fixtures, including major football, boxing, motorsport and equestrian events.<\/p>\n<p>Additional imagery of Golf Saudi\u2019s LET ambassadors is available\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/we.tl\/t-8MrwMMDUoI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To download a promotional video regarding today\u2019s announcement, <a href=\"https:\/\/we.tl\/t-AcMb5bqhS5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For information about Golf Saudi and the event, please visit:\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfsaudi.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.golfsaudi.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For information on the Royal Greens Golf &amp; Country Club, please visit: \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/royalgreens.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/royalgreens.net\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-18405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/LET-Stars-Align-as-Saudi-Announces-first-all-female-professional-event-in-The-Kingdom-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/LET-Stars-Align-as-Saudi-Announces-first-all-female-professional-event-in-The-Kingdom-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/LET-Stars-Align-as-Saudi-Announces-first-all-female-professional-event-in-The-Kingdom-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/LET-Stars-Align-as-Saudi-Announces-first-all-female-professional-event-in-The-Kingdom-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/LET-Stars-Align-as-Saudi-Announces-first-all-female-professional-event-in-The-Kingdom.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia has become renowned at breaking boundaries in sport, a trend which continues with today\u2019s announcement of a fully sanctioned Ladies European Tour (LET) event set to take place in the Kingdom from the 19th to the 22nd March 2020. The tournament, which will carry a USD$1 million prize fund, will be staged in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18406,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18404\/revisions\/18406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}