Saudi Arabia has lastly reached an settlement with America Golf to co-sanction a PIF International Sequence occasion at Las Vegas’ prestigious Shadow Creek subsequent spring, introduced by the LPGA Tour on Wednesday.
The Aramco Championship can be held at Shadow Creek from April 2nd to fifth with 120 gamers from the LPGA and European Ladies’s Excursions taking part. His $4 million purse is the best of any participant outdoors the majors.
That is the primary main announcement for Craig Kessler, who took over as LPGA commissioner in July. He mentioned the Aramco Championship “displays precisely the place we’re heading in constructing the tour’s world schedule.”
“We regularly discuss routes, programs and wallets, and this occasion checks all of the packing containers,” Kessler mentioned. “We additionally acknowledge that partnerships comparable to this, constructed on LET’s long-standing collaboration with Golf Saudi and PIF, will assist strengthen the ladies’s sport and improve alternatives for athletes globally.”
The Aramco Championship is considered one of 5 tournaments that make up the sequence, which the Public Funding Fund rebranded this 12 months whereas growing prize cash.
It goes again to the 2020 workforce idea. The workforce, which started because the Saudi Women Group Worldwide, was renamed the Aramco Group Sequence and have become an everyday a part of the LET schedule.
The Aramco Sequence is held yearly in the US, beginning with New York’s Glen Oaks in 2021 and twice at programs owned by President Donald Trump in New York and Florida.
Nelly Korda and Allison Lee have gained Aramco occasions twice, and a number of other LPGA gamers have additionally competed in Aramco occasions. Britain’s Charlie Hull, a member of each excursions, has gained two Aramco occasions and completed runner-up 5 occasions.
“Now we have constructed a powerful relationship with Golf Saudi since 2020, and this subsequent chapter in welcoming the LPGA to Shadow Creek highlights how far we have now are available strengthening the worldwide platform for ladies’s golf,” mentioned Marta Figueras-Dotti, Chair of the LET Board of Administrators.
PIF is the monetary energy behind LIV Golf, which was launched in 2022 and has poached high names comparable to Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, and Brooks Koepka, with contract bonuses reportedly exceeding $100 million in some circumstances.
In June 2023, PIF President Yasir Al Rumayyan concluded a framework settlement with the PGA Tour and European Tour, ending the litigation and positioning PIF as an investor.
Nonetheless, that settlement in the end fell via, and negotiations with PIF collapsed after the PGA Tour discovered a personal fairness investor in Strategic Sports activities Group and introduced the 2 sides collectively shortly after President Trump was re-elected for a second time period.
The PIF International Sequence was totally different, as Golf Saudi invested within the Ladies’s European Tour with a sequence of occasions that raised essentially the most cash on the LET, however nonetheless fell wanting the majors.
“Ladies’s golf goes from power to power, and PIF has a powerful monitor report of supporting that development and investing in the way forward for girls’s golf,” Al Rumayyan mentioned in an announcement supplied by the LPGA.
“In the present day’s announcement marks one other necessary milestone as we work intently with our nice companions on the LPGA and LET to introduce a co-sanctioned occasion as a part of subsequent 12 months’s PIF International Sequence. The way forward for girls’s golf, on and off the course, has by no means been brighter.”
Kessler mentioned he anticipated some destructive response, however was “amazed by the assist from the LPGA and LET Board of Administrators.” He mentioned he has spoken to dozens of athletes in regards to the Las Vegas event. “The overwhelming feeling was, ‘What took so lengthy?'”
The Aramco Championship is considered one of 5 tournaments within the 2026 PIF International Sequence. The opposite event is the PIF Saudi Women Worldwide from February 11-14. The PIF London Championships can be held on the Centurion Membership on the outskirts of London from August sixth to ninth. The Aramco Korea Championship can be held in South Korea from October eighth to eleventh. and the Aramco China Championship to be held at Mission Hills from November fifth to eighth.
The Aramco Sequence has beforehand been held in Spain, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Solely co-sanctioned occasions at Shadow Creek, which has hosted LPGA match play since 2021, will rely towards official LPGA funding and races to CME Grove.
This would be the fourth event collectively sanctioned by the LPGA and LET, becoming a member of two majors (The Ladies’s British Open and France’s Evian Championship) and the Ladies’s Scottish Open.
