Saudi Arabia lastly has a take care of American golf below an settlement introduced Wednesday for the LPGA Tour to co-sanction a PIF World Collection occasion at prestigious Shadow Creek in Las Vegas subsequent spring.
The Aramco Championship might be held from April 2-5 at Shadow Creek with 120 gamers from the LPGA and the Girls European Tour. The $4 million purse charges among the many highest exterior the majors.
It is the primary massive announcement for Craig Kessler, who took over as LPGA commissioner in July. He stated the Aramco Championship “displays precisely the place we’re headed in constructing the worldwide schedule for our tour.”
“We frequently speak about routing, programs and purses, and this occasion checks each field,” Kessler stated. “We additionally acknowledge that partnerships like this – constructed on LET’s longstanding collaboration with Golf Saudi and PIF — may help strengthen the ladies’s recreation on a worldwide scale and elevate alternatives for our athletes.”
The Aramco Championship is considered one of 5 tournaments that make up the sequence, which the Public Funding Fund rebranded this 12 months whereas elevating the prize cash.
It dates to a group idea in 2020. What began because the Saudi Girls Staff Worldwide was renamed the Aramco Staff Collection and has been a daily a part of the LET schedule.
The Aramco sequence has been held within the U.S. every year, beginning with Glen Oaks in New York in 2021 and twice on programs owned by President Donald Trump in New York and Florida.
Nelly Korda and Alison Lee are two-time winners of Aramco occasions, and a number of other LPGA gamers have competed in them. Charley Hull of England, who has membership on each excursions, has received Aramco occasions twice and was runner-up 5 occasions.
“We have had a robust relationship with Golf Saudi since 2020, and this subsequent chapter – welcoming the LPGA to affix us at Shadow Creek – highlights how far we have are available strengthening the worldwide platform for girls’s golf,” stated Marta Figueras-Dotti, chair of the LET’s board of administrators.
PIF is the monetary muscle behind LIV Golf, which launched in 2022 by luring away prime names like Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka with signing bonuses reported to prime $100 million in some circumstances.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the PIF governor, signed a framework settlement with the PGA Tour and European Tour in June 2023 that ended their lawsuits and positioned PIF as an investor.
However that settlement was by no means finalized, the PGA Tour discovered a non-public fairness investor in Strategic Sports activities Group and negotiations with PIF broke down after Trump introduced collectively either side shortly after he returned to workplace for a second time period.
The PIF World Collection was totally different as Golf Saudi invested within the Girls European Tour with a sequence of occasions that had the biggest purses on the LET, although nonetheless effectively in need of the majors.
“Girls’s golf continues to go from strength-to-strength and PIF has a robust monitor report of backing that development and investing in the way forward for the ladies’s recreation,” Al-Rumayyan stated in a press release supplied by the LPGA.
“In the present day’s announcement marks one other important milestone as we work carefully with nice companions on the LPGA and LET to introduce a co-sanctioned occasion as a part of subsequent 12 months’s PIF World Collection. The way forward for ladies’s golf has by no means been brighter, on and off the course.”
Kessler stated whereas he expects some detrimental response, “I have been blown away by the assist from the LPGA and LET boards.” He stated he has spoken to dozens of gamers concerning the Las Vegas occasion. “The overwhelming sentiment was, ‘What took so lengthy?'”
The Aramco Championship is considered one of 5 tournaments within the PIF World Collection for 2026. The others are the PIF Saudi Girls Worldwide on Feb. 11-14; PIF London Championship at Centurion Membership exterior London on Aug. 6-9; Aramco Korea Championship in South Korea on Oct. 8-11; and Aramco China Championship at Mission Hills on Nov. 5-8.
The Aramco sequence beforehand has performed in Spain, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Solely the co-sanctioned occasion at Shadow Creek – which has hosted the Match Play on the LPGA since 2021 – will rely towards the LPGA’s official cash and its Race to CME Globe.
This would be the fourth co-sanctioned occasion between the LPGA and LET, becoming a member of two majors (Girls’s British Open and Evian Championship in France) and the Girls’s Scottish Open.