The Saudi Ladies International has a US$5m prize fund, supported by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, with the winner taking home US$750,000 ($NZ1.2m).
“It’s cool to see I have an officially under par round as a Mrs,” Ko, who got married in Korea over the off season, said after her first round.
Ko won the event in 2021 but missed last year’s edition, said she had to be more aggressive today and make the most of the conditions.
“I knew today, or between today and tomorrow was the day to take advantage of the calmer conditions,” she said.
“When I came here in November the wind picked up in the afternoon, and I think this time of the year and with the forecast it’s only going to be stronger and probably some of the strongest winds I’ve seen out here, so I knew that today with some of the pin positions I needed to be a little bit more aggressive.”
Ko got married during her lengthy off season but said she still played plenty of golf, which included a trip back to New Zealand and a hole in one and course record at Tara Iti, rated the second best course in the world.
“Had a few weeks to prepare for this one, but I played a lot of golf, maybe a bit too much golf, on my honeymoon. But my husband loves golf and that’s something that we can mutually do together, so we took advantage of that. And actually thanks to him it made my transition into off-season practice a lot easier.
“Yeah, if somebody said, hey, you’re going to play eight rounds of golf over two weeks on your honeymoon I probably would’ve laughed at that person, but it became reality and I had so much fun.”
“Honeymoon is only once in a lifetime, so we really enjoyed it. To say I had a hole in one, I’m not sure many people can say that.”
