By Kent Gray
If you doubt Saudi Arabia’s ambition to build a home-grown foundation beneath top of the pyramid events like the Saudi Ladies International, kindly lend Morocco’s Maha Haddioui your ear.

The Ladies European Tour’s only Arabic player has witnessed first-hand, indeed played a pivotal role in, the drive to introduce golf to the Kingdom’s curious female population.

Haddioui helped inspire more than 1,200 Saudi women and girls to take up golf the weekend of last year’s Aramco Saudi Ladies International presented by PIF. Put into context, the Kingdom had fewer than 20 registered female golfers before the tournament

“This is my fifth time here now and I initially came for the men’s event. There, I gave clinics and initiations for girls and at that time I didn’t think I’d be coming here to compete,” said Haddioui who represented Morocco in the Tokyo Olympics earlier this year.

“Coming here last year was incredible and I was really proud to see young women take up the game. Today, I was out with some of the Ladies First Club members and that was just awesome.

“Coming from Morocco and seeing women’s golf develop like this in the Middle East is a great thing – and seeing girls who were just learning how to play a year ago now playing in the Pro-Am with me just makes it very special.”