Princess Superal and Pauline del Rosario set aside their rivalry to represent the Philippines in the inaugural Simone Asia Pacific Cup on Thursday at the Pondok Indah golf course in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Both Filipinas are coming off inspiring performances.
Superal finished in a tie for second place in the fifth SAT-TWT Open championship at the Lake View Resort & Golf Club in Thailand last 30 July.
Del Rosario, on the other hand, posted her best finish in the Epson Tour last week after placing joint 12th in the Four Winds Invitational.
Major winners Lydia Ko and Kim Hyo-Joo are the star attractions when women’s professional tour golf returns to Indonesia for the first time in a decade.
World number five Ko of New Zealand and South Korea’s eighth-ranked Kim will head a 40-player field for the inaugural Simone Asia Pacific Cup, the first event in the country since the 2012 Indonesia Ladies Open.
They will compete for over 54 holes of stroke play for a total of $500,000 in individual prize money.
Their scores will also count towards a team event, where an additional $250,000 purse is up for grabs for 20 two-player teams formed from 15 golf associations across the Asia-Pacific region.
Other leading players taking part include LPGA Tour six-time winner Ryo So-yeon of South Korea, 21-time Japan LPGA Tour winner Lee Bo-mee and up-and-coming Yealimi Noh of the United States, who placed third at the Evian Championship in France last year.
Hong Kong’s sole representative on the LPGA Tour, double Olympian Tiffany Chan, has also signed up.
The Asia Pacific Cup is part of the ambitious new money-spinning Ladies Asian Tour Series of tournaments that began last month and will include events in South Korea in September and Singapore in December.
The circuit aims to expand to seven tournaments in Asia in 2023 and 10 for the 2024 season.
