Riyadh,<\/p>\n
The appearance of female golfers, dressed in casual T-shirts and trousers, is a striking anomaly in Saudi Arabia. Denmark\u2019s Emily Pedersen won the first-ever women\u2019s golf tournament in Saudi Arabia in a tense playoff, but the event designed to soften the kingdom\u2019s austere image has drawn charges of being a \u2018sport swashing\u2019 exercise.<\/p>\n
With a birdie on the extra hole, Pedersen edged out England\u2019s Georgia Hall and secured the $150,000 winner\u2019s cheque in the inaugural Saudi Ladies International on Sunday at the King Abdullah Economic City close to the western city of Jeddah.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m so happy to be the first winner of this event,\u2019 Pedersen said in a statement. \u2018It\u2019s been such a fantastic experience to be here in Saudi Arabia.\u2019 But Amnesty International and other rights groups said the event glossed over Saudi\u2019s poor human rights record and the jailing of several women activists who have called for reforms.<\/p>\n
The appearance of female golfers, dressed in casual T-shirts and trousers, is a striking anomaly in Saudi Arabia, that has long imposed a strict dress code on women.<\/p>\n
As part of a sweeping liberalization drive, de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has accelerated investment in glitzy sports and entertainment events in a bid to improve its reputation. In March, the kingdom hosted the world\u2019s richest horse race, after staging the Italian and Spanish football Super Cups last year.<\/p>\n
It already hosts the Dakar Rally, a 12-day marathon through the Arabian desert, and the all-electric Formula E series, in addition to an array of boxing, golf and tennis events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Riyadh, The appearance of female golfers, dressed in casual T-shirts and trousers, is a striking anomaly in Saudi Arabia. Denmark\u2019s Emily Pedersen won the first-ever women\u2019s golf tournament in Saudi Arabia in a tense playoff, but the event designed to soften the kingdom\u2019s austere image has drawn charges of being a \u2018sport swashing\u2019 exercise. With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17729,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727\/revisions\/17729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}