Georgia Hall's Saudi Ladies International win highlights golf's huge gender pay gap

It has taken until mid-March for a British golfer to post a victory on one of the main professional tours and Georgia Hall's success in the Middle East was a fine triumph that bodes well for her 2022 season.

And in these times of hyper prize money inflation, it was also a win to highlight a continuing gender discrepancy that blights professional golf.

The 25-year-old from Bournemouth dominated the Saudi Ladies International in Jeddah from start to finish, preserving a five-stroke advantage on the final day to win in convincing fashion on Sunday.

Hall eclipsed Solheim Cup team-mates Emily Kristine Pedersen and Carlotta Ciganda to claim a winner's cheque of $135,548 (£103,000) from a $1m prize pot.

It seems a decent return for a week's work, until you consider the figures banded around last week for the launch of the men's LIV Golf International Series, fronted by former world number one Greg Norman.

Currently there are scores of leading male professionals, most of them already multi-millionaires, weighing up invitations to take part in Norman's eight-tournament series worth $25.5m per event.

The women's tournament won by Hall was presented by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), the same source of revenue that backs the LIV Golf Series.

And to be fair, this was the first of six $1m Aramco Series competitions that significantly bolster an otherwise relatively impoverished Ladies European Tour schedule.

So it is little wonder that Norman used this investment in the female game as a prime argument against claims of Saudi Arabian «sports washing» of the country's record on human rights.

As he launched his so-called Saudi Super League last week, Norman faced repeated questions regarding the recent mass execution of 81 men as