Brian O'Driscoll and Shane Lowry teed it up at Yas Island Links as they competed in the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship Pro Am this afternoon.
As the golfing world descends on the United Arab Emirates ahead of this week's Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, the celebrities were out in abundance as they teamed up with some of the world's top professionals.
And Shane Lowry had Rugby royalty by his side today in the form of Ireland hero Brian O'Driscoll as they took on the Yas Links.
And despite an average team performance, O'Driscoll insisted there was 'strong team craic' as the pair were all smiles in pictures.
On Instagram, he said: "Great afternoon hacking my way around @yaslinksad for the @adgolfchamps pro am with non hacker @shanelowrygolf. Average team performance strong team craic!"
And Lowry is happy to honour his contract to compete in the Saudi International, despite the ongoing controversy surrounding the event.
The inaugural tournament in 2019 attracted a star-studded field, despite the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi the previous year in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Turkey focusing further attention on the country’s human rights record.
After three years as part of the European Tour, the tournament is now the flagship event on the Asian Tour, which is also launching 10 new events spearheaded by Greg Norman and is backed by 200 million US dollars from the Saudi government’s Private Investment Fund.
That meant players needed to seek releases from the PGA Tour and DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) to compete in this year’s event from February 3-6, the same week as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California and the Ras al Khaimah Championship in the UAE.
The PGA Tour said in July that it would not grant players releases to play in “unsanctioned events”, but announced in December that they had been given on condition of varying commitments to play the Pebble Beach event in future years.
“I left all that to my agent, but I’m pretty sure I had to get a release from both tours to go play,” Lowry said in a conference call to promote the Saudi International.
“I didn’t think it was a big issue for me, to be honest, because I’ve played here the last two years and I’ve played on the Asian Tour in the past. I would have been very disappointed if I didn’t get the release. I wasn’t surprised that we all did. I think it was something that they had to do.
“For years top world-class players have been going around playing on the Asian Tour and doing stuff like that, so I don’t think this is any different.”
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