With its sponsorship of the Aramco Team Series, which held the second of four tournaments in Sotogrande, Spain, this past weekend, the world is getting a closer look at Aramco's dedication to providing equal opportunities for women, and promoting healthy lifestyles.
Aramco Team Series shines in Spain
In the team competition, Team Buhai and Team Strom both finished the normal round with 35-under-par, which forced a late evening deciding hole. Team Buhai, featuring South Africans Ashleigh Buhai and Stacy Lee Bregman, Hayley Davis of England, and Spanish amateur Ignacio Morillo, eventually won the match during the final hole.
In the individual competition, Alison Lee of the U.S. beat Buhai by five strokes, at 15-under. It was Lee's first professional title.
A unique format
Aramco's sponsorship of this novel Ladies European Tour (LET) series allows some of the best female golfers in the world to compete in a unique format that sees teams plus individuals play for a $1 million prize at each of the four events. The series started last month in St. Albans, U.K., and will continue in New York from Oct. 14-16, and then in Jiddah from Nov. 10-12.
Each Aramco Team Series tournament sees 36 captains lead teams of four players, who together compete to shoot the lowest combined score over three days of golf. All teams feature three LET players paired through a unique draft system, in which captains choose one player and are randomly assigned another. The fourth member of each team is an amateur golfer, a position open to all golfers in Spain for the Aramco Team Series – Sotogrande, through the tournament's world first “Team Up” competition. That means it could fall to an amateur golfer to hole a LET tournament winning putt to secure prize money for the professional players, a feat unique to world golf.
Advancement for women
The Aramco Team Series serves as a springboard for female golf at all levels, and may inspire more women to take up the sport — both in Saudi Arabia and around the world. Through sponsorship of the Series, Aramco continues to focus on providing opportunities and advancement for women in a wide range of fields, from athletes to engineers, researchers, energy traders, and data scientists.