Six Asian Tour number ones and over 50 Asian Tour players, boasting hundreds of Tour titles between them will play in next week’s PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers, the season-opening event on the 2022 Asian Tour calendar.
Kim Joohyung, winner of The Singapore International golf event at Tanah Merah Country Club and Asian Tour Order of Merit Champion. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
Joohyung Kim, the 19-year-old rising star from Korea, who secured the 2020-21 Asian Tour Order of Merit title at the weekend, after finishing joint second in the SMBC Singapore Open, will lead an impressive line-up which includes former Merit list champions Thongchai Jaidee from Thailand (2001, 2004, 2009), his compatriot Jazz Janewattananond (2019), Shubhankar Sharma from India (2018), Malaysia’s Gavin Green (2017), and Australian Scott Hend (2016).
The tournament will be played at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club from February 3-6 and will feature the strongest field ever assembled for an Asian Tour event.
Americans Dustin Johnson – the defending champion and 2019 winner, Bryson DeChambeau, and Xander Schauffele, all in the top-10 on the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), are competing as well as six-time Major champion Phil Mickelson from the United States, Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell, the 2020 winner, Spaniard Sergio Garcia, and England’s Lee Westwood, Paul Casey, Tommy Fleetwood, and Ian Poulter, among others.
The tournament will also be one of the most lucrative in the Tour’s history with a purse of US$5 million.
The top-30 players from the Final Asian Tour Order of Merit booked their tickets to Saudi although Kim is actually exempt through a category for the top-300 on the OWGR. This also applied to Thailand’s Sadom Kaewkanjana, who claimed the SMBC Singapore Open to finish in second place on the Merit list, and Phachara Khongwatmai, Korean Bio Kim, Australian Wade Ormsby plus Jazz and Sharma.
2017 Order of Merit champion Gavin Green of Malaysia will also play in the Saudi International next week. Picture by Paul Lakatos/Asian Tour.
The Asian Tour resumed play at the end of last year, following a 20-month break caused by COVID-19, with back-to-back events in Phuket.
Chan Shih-chang from Chinese-Taipei, also playing in Saudi, was victorious in the first of those, the Blue Canyon Phuket Championship, while the following week Phachara lifted the Laguna Phuket Championship trophy.
The Tour resumed its end of season events in Singapore this month with Joohyung Kim winning The Singapore International, a week before Sadom’s success in Singapore’s National Open.
A number of Asian players received invites to the tournament including Malaysia’s Ben Leong, Thongchai Jaidee, his countryman Prom Meesawat and Filipinos Angelo Que and Miguel Tabuena. Another of the invites is Thailand’s 14-year-old golfing wonderkid Ratchanon Chantananuwat. The amateur sensation, nicknamed “TK”, nearly won The Singapore International, before finishing in third place.
Singapore’s Koh Dengshan also earned a berth in the elite field in the Saudi International by being the top local player at the SMBC Singapore Open.
