Defending champ Babnik back at one of her favourite courses

Last year Slovenia’s Pia Babnik triumphed in the Individual competition at the Aramco Team Series – Jeddah by holing her birdie putt on the 18th.

The teenager, who turned professional and secured playing rights on the LET at the age of 16, fired rounds of 70 (-2), 65 (-7) and 65 (-7) to clinch her second LET title of the 2021 season.

And Olympian Babnik believes the Team aspect of the event, competing alongside France’s Camille Chevalier, Norway’s Maiken Bing Paulsen and amateur Troy Thompson, meant she performed to the best of her ability.

‘I only have good memories of last year’s tournament,’ she said. ‘I had a great team, a great amateur and I had great fun throughout the tournament.

‘I was more focused on my Team score, but it turned out that that was even better for my Individual result.’

Babnik, who is number 66 in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, is still fresh in her professional career but has had her best season to date.

And despite having success early on in her career, the Slovenian star knows that perfection is hard to come by in golf and she needs to keep working on her game.

She continued: ‘The 2022 season has been my best professional season so far. My best result was third place at The Chevron Championship, and I was able to play in all five Majors this year.

“I haven’t been working on anything specific, I’ve been working on all parts of my game as I know I can improve on all aspects.’

Returning to the place of a triumph is always special and the two-time LET winner has tried to prepare for this week at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club as best as she can with a trip to Dubai.

She added: ‘To be prepared to defend my title at the Aramco Team Series – Jeddah, I took three days of preparation in Dubai to get used to the hot weather and climate, as well as the Bermuda grass

Dubai based Kristyna Napoleova (Czech) will play with the defending individual champion Babnik at 12.28 pm along with Lauren Taylor (Eng) off Tee 1.

15 year-old Chiara Noja will captain her team of Emma Spitz (Aut) and Elia Folch (Spain) teeing off at 11.11 am.

The format is 54 holes individual strokeplay with the first 36 holes also a team format along with a nominated amateur.

Chiara told Gulf News, ‘I have recently been more focussed on my mock exams than practising. It’s sadly going to be some sort of loss either way: the more I study, the less time I have to practice and the more I practice, the less time I have to study. That’s life and it’s about managing those two things right now.

‘I am super excited for the week ahead. It’s a super cool event to come back to and it’s nice to end the season where it all started.’