Lexi Thompson. LET

The latest Aramco Team Series event gets under way in Florida on Friday, and once again a strong field has assembled to compete for the team and individual titles.

The crowds will be out in force in the Miami sunshine as two of the world’s best players headline a stacked field at Trump International, West Palm Beach.

Lexi Thompson is the home hopeful, and will be eyeing another ATS title after winning in New York last year.

“I’m overall just looking forward to the week,” she said. “The Aramco Team Series events are such great events to begin with, and I have a lot of support out there coming from Friday.

“It’s definitely a bonus to be here in Florida and it would mean the world to me to win to defend the title. I have a lot of family friends coming up to support me, so overall it’ll just be a blast of a week.

“I would say it’s a little bit of an advantage being on my home course, but you still have to go out there and hit the golf shots”.

Lydia Ko. LET

Thompson will face competition form Lydia Ko, the world No. 3 who finished third Laguna National Golf Resort Club in Singapore.

“I really enjoyed playing the ATS Singapore,” she said of her Aramco debut. “There’s not that many opportunities where you get to play in the team format and even though we are counting those individual scores, it’s nice to have that team atmosphere”.

Of the course, Thompson added: “It’s an amazing golf course. It’s so beautiful. It’s probably in the best shape that I’ve ever seen. And I’ve played out here for 10 years at least, and they have it in great shape for us.

“It’s just a very difficult golf course and they have it set up difficult as well, yardage-wise. It’s a ball striker’s golf course, you have to definitely commit to your lines off the tee. It requires a lot of really good tee shots and it’s very scenic; a lot of water, a lot of trees. But you just have to sometimes play more aggressively because you want shorter clubs coming into some of the greens because some of them are elevated and a lot of them have a lot of slope in them as well”.

Ko is making her first appearance at Trump International and is getting used to the set-up. “The golf course is nice, it’s tricky,” she said. “I had zero idea what the golf course was like before seeing the course for the first time yesterday, but there’s some longer holes and some shorter holes. It’s a really good golf course, the greens are quite small so I think when you’re on the green you’ve got a pretty good chance of having a birdie opportunity, but it’s also just as easy to not be on it.”

The Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour is competed across five global destinations throughout the year. After starting the season off in Singapore, the series moves this week to Florida, then on to London and Hong Kong before concluding in Riyadh in October. The Aramco Team Series Florida consists of 36 teams comprising of one amateur and three professionals who compete for a $1million prize fund. Aside from the team event, there is a three-day individual stroke play competition contested amongst the professionals which contributes to both Race to Costa del Sol and Rolex World Ranking points.

Ko is teamed with Tereza Melecka and Marianne Skarpnord, while Thompson will have Lydia Hall and Kelly Whaley for company.

Six-time LPGA Tour winner Jessica Korda and Race to Costa del Sol leader Aditi Ashok will also tee it up in Florida, alongside Sweden’s Linn Grant and Johanna Gustavsson, who was the winning team captain in the US last year 2022.

Also playing will be multiple tour winners Anne van Dam, Marianne Skarpnord, Stephanie Kyriacou, Pia Babnik, Alison Lee, Emily Pedersen, Carlota Ciganda, Lindsey Weaver Wright, Olivia Cowan, Chiara Noja and ATS Singapore champ Pauline Roussin