Saudi Ladies International: Stars return to Saudi Arabia as women’s golf battles for equality

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The match returns to Royal Greens Golf & Nation Membership in King Abdullah Financial Metropolis this Thursday after it made historical past final yr as the primary skilled girls’s sporting occasion to be staged in Saudi Arabia.

With one of many richest prizes on the Girls European Tour (LET) schedule — a $1 million USD prize fund — it has shortly turn into one of many extra extremely desired titles.

The significance of getting a boundary breaking match with a giant prize pot will not be misplaced on LET CEO, Alex Armas.

“I believe it is massively essential as a result of throughout the globe, we have to get the inhabitants extra lively and concerned in sports activities,” Armas mentioned.
A Saudi man watches a golfer compete in the Saudi Ladies International golf tournament on November 15, 2020.

“I believe the easiest way to try this is, clearly, by dwell sports activities on TV and for folks to have the ability to turn into impressed by these athletes and look as much as them as position fashions. Having so many sporting occasions of the standard that Saudi is bringing to the Kingdom can be massively essential to rising participation in numerous sports activities. The quantity of those that signed up for the Girls First Membership and the quantity of constructive suggestions was immense.”

An entire host of celebrity gamers have been confirmed as enjoying at this week’s competitors, alongside defending champion Emily Kristine Pedersen.

Two-time major-winner Lydia Ko has been confirmed, in addition to fellow major-winners Georgia Corridor, Anna Nordqvist, and Laura Davies.

Whereas the singles occasion begins this Thursday, a Saudi double-header can be concluded on the staff occasion on Wednesday, November 10.

The second of two $1 million LET tournaments happening within the area of 9 days, a part of the Aramco Staff Sequence which has taken place internationally, has aimed to handle inequality in girls’s golf, based on the LET.

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Pedersen celebrates with the trophy after winning the 2020 Saudi Ladies International.
“There’s a problem of girls’s sport,” mentioned Armas. “We do not get the protection of the boys, however there’s a shift in that, and the equality motion and the company firms are realizing there may be an imbalance.

“We have to showcase them and their tales and unimaginable journeys. We nonetheless have a protracted strategy to go. Individuals do not understand what good athletes these girls are, and if they do not get to see that, they do not perceive that. They’ll compete. They’re nearly as good athletes as the boys.”