The US’ Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour has partnered with Saudi Golf to launch a new tournament in Las Vegas, US, next year.
The Aramco Championship at Shadow Creek Golf Club in Las Vegas will take place from March 30 to April 5, 2026, featuring a $4 million prize purse and a 120-player field.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The 72-hole tournament has been co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour (LET) and is part of the LET’s five-event Global Series, funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).
It is the fourth co-sanctioned event by LPGA and LET alongside the Women’s British Open, the Evian Championship in France, and the Women’s Scottish Open, and builds on LET’s lucrative partnership with Saudi Golf.
LET’s partnership with Saudi Golf, launched amid the Covid pandemic in 2020, is credited with saving LET from financial crisis and saw the launch of the tour’s lucrative Aramco Series, which helped increase the tour’s total prize money from $18 million in 2020 to around $39 million in 2024.
It is the first tie-up between the LPGA and Saudi Golf/PIF after years of discussion under various LPGA commissioners since the launch of the PIF-backed LIV Golf Circuit in men’s golf.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataHowever, the partnership has been considered controversial up to now, given the number of accusations of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and restrictions on women within the kingdom.
LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler has now said: “The Aramco Championship, part of the PIF Global Series, at Shadow Creek, reflects exactly where we’re headed in building the global schedule for our tour.
“We often talk about routing, courses, and purses – and this event checks every box: a spectacular West Coast setting, an iconic course, and a purse that continues our momentum in raising the bar for our athletes.
“We also recognize that partnerships like this – built on the LET’s longstanding collaboration with Golf Saudi and PIF — can help strengthen the women’s game on a global scale and elevate opportunities for our athletes.”
Previous PIF Global Series events have been played entirely in the US but sanctioned solely by the LET.
Alongside Las Vegas, however, the other four events in the series for 2026 will be played in Saudi Arabia, London, Seoul, and China. The total prize purse across the five events will be $15 million.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, chairman of the board of Saudi Golf and governor of PIF, said: “Women's golf continues to go from strength to strength, and PIF has a strong track record of backing that growth and investing in the future of the women's game.
“The future of women's golf has never been brighter, on and off the course.”
The new partnership comes after Al-Rumayyan signed a framework agreement with the men’s PGA Tour and European Tour in June 2023 that ended several lawsuits and positioned PIF as an investor.
However, the deal was never finalized, and the PGA Tour secured a private equity investor in Strategic Sports Group.
