The Saudi International, currently titled as the PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers for sponsorship reasons, is a professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

tournament. It was held at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club in

King Abdullah Economic City King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC, ; ) is a planned city in Rabigh Governorate, Mecca Province, Saudi Arabia. It was announced as a megaproject in 2005 by King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. It is located in close proximity to Thuwal, almost 100 k ...

, Saudi Arabia, from 2019 until 2023. The tournament moved to Riyadh Golf Club for the 2024 edition. The tournament has been title sponsored by the

Public Investment Fund The Public Investment Fund (PIF; ) is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. It is among the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world with total estimated assets of billion. It was created in 1971 for the purpose of investing funds on be ...

(PIF), a Saudi government sovereign wealth fund since 2022.

History

Established in 2019 as a

European Tour The European Tour, currently titled as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons, and legally the PGA European Tour or the European Tour Group, is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European ...

event, it was the first European Tour event to be played in Saudi Arabia and was one of six European Tour events staged in the countries on the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

. The event has drawn criticism due to the involvement of Saudi Arabia's government in the event, based on their record of human rights within the country and their ventures of

sportswashing Sportswashing is a term used to describe the practice of governments, individuals, corporations, or other groups using sports to improve reputations tarnished by wrongdoing. A form of propaganda, sportswashing can be accomplished through hosting ...

. This included paying large appearance fees to some of the world's top players. The tournament ceased to be a European Tour event after the 2021 edition, and later that year it was announced that as a result, the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

would not allow their members to compete in future editions, with the European Tour expected to do the same. In September 2021, it was announced that it would become part of the

Asian Tour The Asian Tour is the principal men's professional golf professional golf tours, tour in Asia except for Japan (which has its own Japan Golf Tour). It is also a full member of the International Federation of PGA Tours. Official money events on ...

's schedule. This involved a ten-year deal starting in 2022, with an increased prize fund of . In October, it was announced that the event would become the flagship event of the Asian Tour. In December, the PGA Tour revealed that they would grant their members releases to play in the event in 2022; on the condition that they committed to play in the

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour, held annually at Pebble Beach, California, near Carmel. The tournament is usually held during the month of February on two different courses, currently Pebble Beach ...

in some form in the following years. In January 2022, it was announced that the Saudi

had become the new title sponsor of the event.

Winners

Notes

References

External links

*
Coverage on the Asian Tour's official siteCoverage on the European Tour's official site
{{Portal, Saudi Arabia Asian Tour events Former European Tour events Golf tournaments in Saudi Arabia Recurring sporting events established in 2019 2019 establishments in Saudi Arabia