Korea’s maiden Aramco Team Series Presented by PIF event will also be a landmark for India’s much-decorated Diksha Dagar, who tees up for 100th start on the Ladies European Tour (LET) this week at the New Korea Country Club.
Dagar will become the first Indian woman golfer to reach the landmark of 100 events on the LET. In 99 starts so far, she has two wins and 16 top 10, nine of which came in 2023.
This is also the first time the Aramco Team Series is coming to Korea.
Interestingly, Dagar was part of the team that won the Aramco Team Series event in London in 2021, the year when the series was held under the Aramco banner for the first time.
Dagar, who turned pro in 2019 and won on LET in her first full season, has been a regular on LET since then.
Currently ninth on the LET Order of Merit, Dagar turned 23 years old in December. She is one of the three Indians to tee off at the New Korea Country Club. The other two Indians in the field are Pranavi Urs and Vani Kapoor.
Dagar will also lead the team of Czechia’s Tereza Melecka and Korean Do Yeon Park, while Urs and Kapoor are in the team led by Singaporean Shannon Tan, who has already won once in her rookie season.
Dagar, who was part of the winning team in the very first event under the Aramco Team Series in London in 2021, has finished in the Top-10 of the individual section only once. That first Top-10 came this year in Tampa Florida, where she was T6.
Dagar, a lock-in for the Olympic Games in Paris, is ranked 147th in the world and the second best Indian after Aditi Ashok (53rd).
Twice medallist, including gold medal in 2021, at the Deaflympics, is also a recipient of India’s prestigious Arjuna Award in 2023. “Representing India is the biggest honour one can have so I am looking forward to my second Olympic appearance,” said Dagar, who is the only golfer to have played at both the Summer Olympics (2021 Tokyo) and the Deaflympics (2017 and 2021).
Dagar is one of only two Indian women to have won on the LET and she has done it twice – once in Investec South African Women’s Open in 2019, and in Czech Ladies Open in 2023.
“For the present my focus is the LET, where I have won twice and I want to do better,” Dagar said, who is also aiming to get to the LPGA Tour in the United States.
Dagar, who won once in the Tipsport Czech Ladies Open and was T3 at the Amundi German Masters and Hero Indian Open, last year, was also third in the Order of Merit. She had nine individual Top-10 finishes and one more in the team event in Hong Kong.
This season she has had Top-10 finishes in Lalla Meryem Cup in Morocco (9th) and in Tampa Florida (T-6). The busy part of the season is still ahead of her.
Kapoor has been around for some years but is still looking for her first win on the LET, as is Urs, who is playing her first full season on the Tour.
Dagar will tee off at 7.57 am in the morning, while Pranavi and Vani will be in the same group that tees off from the tenth at 1.17 pm in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, the French star, Pauline Roussin-Bouchard, who produced a fine winning effort at the Aramco Series event in Singapore last year, is all set to take on winners Danielle Kang and Lydia Ko.
Roussin-Bouchard had a special win with her boyfriend on the bag besides her mother and coach also being there.
Roussin-Bouchard went on to have more success at the Aramco Team Series winning the 36-hole Team competition as a captain in Florida and Tampa this year in March and was T-12 in the Individual event. She was also runner-up at the Lalla Meryem Cup in Morocco. She has also secured a spot at the U.S Women’s Open through a qualifier in the US.
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