Teeing off with professionals at Aramco Team Series highlights gap between the best and the rest

The Aramco Team Series opened up for its third season last week in Singapore, with world No 1 Lydia Ko headlining the field. A tournament that places amateurs alongside professionals for two rounds, before the professionals battle it out on Saturday for the individual title, it has a prize fund of US$1 million on each of its five stops, making it one of the most lucrative competitions on the Ladies European Tour.

A total of 26 amateurs, men and women, are invited to take part and the Post’s Josh Ball was one of those lucky few to take to the course at Laguna National Golf Resort Club.

Standing on the 10th tee on Thursday morning it was impossible not to feel as though the trees on the right of the fairway were edging ever closer to the bunkers on the left, making any attempt to stay out of trouble almost Sisyphean.

Nerves can be funny things, especially when you’re playing in a professional tournament for the first time as an amateur whose game feels average at best and cringingly bad at worst.

Being introduced as the last member of Team Garcia only compounded the feeling and in that instance, having watched Nicole Garcia, Megan MacLaren and Kaleigh Telfer comfortably crush it down the middle, just getting the ball more than 100 yards felt like an accomplishment.

As an amateur, the most you can hope for in a tournament such as this is to contribute here and there, and not get in the way of three players trying to win a not insignificant amount of money and earn Race to Costa del Sol points in the process.