Another week at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club is upon us, but this time the field will be competing in the Aramco Team Series – Jeddah.
The final of the four ATS events this year will see the 108-player field tee it up on the familiar surroundings over three days in Saudi Arabia.
Here are three things to watch out for this week.
Aramco Team Series champions out in force
In the fourth and final Aramco Team Series event of 2021, winners from the events in London, Sotogrande and New York will be competing once again.
Norway’s Marianne Skarpnord, American Alison Lee and England’s Charley Hull have all been crowned individual champions of the tournaments this year and are back for another attempt at glory.
All three members of Team Cowan – Olivia Cowan, Sarina Schmidt and Diksha Dagar – who won in London are in attendance this week.
As are Stacy Lee Bregman and Hayley Davis from triumphant Team Buhai, and Karolin Lampert and Lina Boqvist from Team Jessica Korda.
Additionally, all three professionals from Team Pedersen – Emily Kristine Pedersen, Michele Thomson and Casandra Hall – who won in 2020 are also in the field.
Innovative format returns
The competition will see 36 teams playing this week, each consisting of three professionals and one amateur.
As per the previous editions, the team captains have been chosen based upon the official Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings as of Monday 1st November.
In the draft, the 36 captains will be able to select the first player to join their team with the order they pick determined randomly, another professional will be randomly assigned before an amateur completes the line up.
In the tournament, the team event is a ‘two-from-four’ format which sees the best two scores on each hole taken forward, while every professional will complete every hole for the individual competition.
Majority of ASLI top ten will tee it up again
Many of the players who teed it up at the Aramco Saudi Ladies International will return this week for the Aramco Team Series – Jeddah including 11 of the top 12 finishers.
Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul claimed second place at last week’s tournament and in doing so clinched the 2021 Race to Costa del Sol crown becoming the youngest ever winner of the accolade.
Spain’s Carlota Ciganda and England’s Alice Hewson finished T3 with Cowan and Australian Whitney Hillier in T5.
Sotogrande individual champion Lee was also inside the top-ten last week as was Spaniard Nuria Iturrioz.
While Australian Stephanie Kyriacou, who holds the course record, ended last week T9 alongside 2020 Aramco Saudi Ladies International runner-up Georgia Hall, India’s Tvesa Malik and Finland’s Sanna Nuutinen.
Having performed so well in their first week at Royal Greens, the players will hope they can continue their momentum into their second week in Saudi Arabia.
