Women golfers also gather in Saudi Arabia in the ‘oil money effect’.
Hyo-joo Kim, In-ji Jeon, Jung-eun Lee, A-lim Kim, Hee-jeong Lim, Eun-hee Ji, Ji-eun Shin, Yu-jin Sung, Ten Korean players, including Lee Jung-min and Lee Seung-yeon, were on the list.
Players who have been active on the US (LPGA) and Korea (KLPGA) tours have been preparing for the new season by training after spending a long break after finishing last year’s season.
In this event, the top 300 in the world rankings will participate.
The large prize money cannot be overlooked as a reason why many players who have been preparing for the new season are flocking to Saudi Arabia.
The competition is sponsored by Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer. The total prize money of the tournament is a whopping $5 million. It has the largest prize pool among women’s professional golf tournaments held in the world, excluding the five major tournaments of the US LPGA Tour and the CME Group Tour Championship.
The five major tournaments on the LPGA Tour are the Chevron Championship ($5.1 million), the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship ($9 million), the US Women’s Open ($10 million), the Amundi Evian Championship ($6.5 million), and the AIG Women’s Open ($7.3 million). The total prize money for the CME Group Tour Championship, held as the final match of the season, is $7 million, and the prize money for other general tournaments ranges from $1.5 million to $3 million.
The largest prize money on the KLPGA tour is 1.5 billion won (Hana Financial Group Championship) and 300 million yen (Earthmondamine Cup, about 2.83 billion won) on the Japan Women’s Professional Golf (JLPGA) tour.
In addition, the prize money alone reaches 750,000 dollars (approximately 926 million won), so if Lim Hee-jung, Lee Jung-min, Lee Seung-yeon, and Seong Yu-jin, who play on the KLPGA tour, win, they will win more prize money than last year’s total prize money.
Among the KLPGA players participating in this tournament, the player who earned the most money last year was Lim Hee-jeong, who earned 750.13 million won. 먹튀검증
There is a lot of prize money at stake, so not only Korean players but also a large number of top players on the LPGA tour participate.
This tournament, which has been held since 2020, attracted LPGA stars thanks to the large prize money from the first tournament.
Emily Christine (Denmark) of the European Tour won the first round, but in the second and third rounds, Lydia Ko (New Zealand) and Georgia Hall (England), who are active on the LPGA Tour, rose to the top.
In this year’s tournament, top LPGA Tour players such as World No. 1 Lydia Ko and No. 7 Lexi Thompson (USA), Hannah Green (Australia), Yuka Sasso (Japan), Gaby Lopez (Mexico), and Patty Tawatanagit (Thailand) are participating in large numbers.
Since the tournament is held in mid-February, it also has the nature of midway and final checks for players who are training at the right time.
The KLPGA tour starts in April and ends the regular season in November. There is a long break until the opening of domestic competitions in April of the following year. In the 2023 season, two overseas competitions were held in Singapore and Vietnam in December, but they still have to rest for at least four months, so it is perfect to prepare for the opening and check training results.
The LPGA tour held its opening match in January, but the next tournament is the Honda Thailand match to be held in Thailand after this tournament is over. It is an opportunity to prepare for the new season for Korean players who are training in Southeast Asia.
Kim Hyo-joo, who is participating in this tournament for the first time, said, “I think it will be a test stage to check the training that I have quenched during the winter training period before the first competition of the new season of the LPGA Tour.” did,” he said.
Lim Hee-jung, who is training in Thailand, said, “I came to participate to find out what needs to be supplemented before the start of the season because there are a lot of changes this year, such as changing clubs and balls.”