The Asian Tour membership have seized the opportunity to play with many of the present day greats of the game at this week’s US$5milllion PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers.
All of the top 10 from the Asian Tour Order of Merit and 38 from the top 40 are competing here at Riyadh Golf Club – in the season-ending event on the Asian Tour and The International Series.
There are also 42 players from the LIV Golf League, including defending champion Abraham Ancer from Mexico and American Dustin Johnson, a two-time winner here, from a starting field of 120.
Newly minted Asian Tour Order of Merit champion John Catlin from the United States leads the field from the Tour along with the other players from the top 10: Ben Campbell from New Zealand, Canadian Richard T. Lee, Lee Chieh-po from Chinese-Taipei, Thailand’s Suteepat Prateeptienchai, M.J. Maguire from the United States, Filipino Miguel Tabuena, Sadom Kaewkanjana and Gunn Charoenkul from Thailand, and Korean Jeunghun Wang.
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Abraham Ancer. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
With the Merit list title having been decided the focus is now on The International Series Rankings, which is now being led by American Peter Uihlein, after his victory in last week’s International Series Qatar.
Uihlein, also playing this week, took over at the top of the rankings from Catlin, who had led for most of the year.
Uihlein leads with 1,071.10 points by 143.64 from second-placed Catlin but with 1,000 points going to the winner and 525 to the runner-up this week it is truly wide open with all competitors this week in with a chance.
Even Thailand’s Pavit Tangkamolprasert, the lowest ranked player here on The International Series Rankins in 65th place, can technically do it as he has 73.36 points, but needs the players above him to finish out of the points.
Johnson, the winner of this event in 2019 and 2021, is joined by other past champions Graeme McDowell from Northern Ireland and American Harold Varner III – the 2020 and 2022 winners respectively.
All three are LIV Golf League players with many of the other stars from the league here this week, including Spain’s Sergio Garcia, Englishman Tyrell Hatton, Cam Smith from Australia, South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel plus American Patrick Reed – winner of the recent Link Hong Kong Open.
Thailand’s amateur star ‘TK’ Ratchanon Chantananuwat is also competing. He has taken time out from his freshman year at Stanford University to play in the strongest and most lucrative field on the Asian Tour in 2024.