Josh Hill eyes more Gulf success at PIF Saudi International in Jeddah

ABU DHABI, DUBAI, JEDDAH: Josh Hill’s journey through golf’s major tournaments in the GCC continues this week at the Saudi International, which tees off at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in King Abdullah Economic City on Thursday morning.

And although the Dubai-based 17-year-old is coming off yet another excellent performance at the Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic, he continues to set his sights ever higher. Simply taking part and making the cut, as he did in the two UAE-based events, is not enough.

“The Desert Classic was a good week, it was fun,” the young Briton said. “The setup was amazing and Slync did really well with how they got the atmosphere to be so great.”

Hill finished joint 53rd, having at one point hit 23 on the leaderboard.

“I made another cut which isn’t always the goal but it’s a good achievement. I had a good third round, got right up the leaderboard and then had a bad final day,” he said.

“There’s many reasons why, but the overall experience of playing the Desert Classic was unreal, and playing in Abu Dhabi has taught me a lot going into this week. I feel I can keep pushing, keep playing good golf and keep climbing the leaderboards in these top events. So it was a good week and I learned a lot.”

A week earlier Hill excelled in his first ever appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. And teeing off alongside some of the world’s best players did not seem to faze him.

“It was good fun, the whole week,” he said. “Played a practice round with Lee (Westwood) and Bernd (Wiesberger) and then with (Emirati golfer) Ahmad Skaik, a good friend. And then playing some good golf on the Thursday, I was quite happy with it and then it was a struggle on Friday.

“But to bounce back the way I did