The Ladies European Tour rolls into Rabat this week for the 29th playing of the Lalla Meryem Cup — and the storylines stretch well beyond a 54-hole title fight. England’s Cara Gainer returns to defend the crown she lifted in a playoff just 15 months ago. A 17-year-old Canadian phenom is in the field as a back-to-back LET winner. And seven Moroccans, led by two-time Olympian Maha Haddioui, are chasing what would be the first home victory in tournament history.
Played at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam from May 21-23, the 2026 Lalla Meryem Cup runs in a rare cross-tour collaboration alongside the PGA Tour Champions’ Trophy Hassan II, with the two events sharing the legendary Robert Trent Jones-designed property in Morocco’s capital.
What’s Happening At The Lalla Meryem Cup 2026
The Lalla Meryem Cup is the LET’s 11th stop of the 2026 season and features 132 players from 36 nationalities, including 37 LET title-winners. The purse sits at €450,000, with the women teeing it up on the par-73, 6,449-yard Blue Course at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam.
The event is held under the high patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI and has been part of Morocco’s professional sporting calendar since 1993. After joining the LET in 2010, it has steadily grown into one of the tour’s most internationally diverse stops — the kind of week where players from a dozen golf federations share locker-room space and tee off in the same group.
This year’s tournament also serves as the LET’s final African swing of the season, making it a meaningful checkpoint for players still chasing 2026 ranking points and starts in bigger fields later in the year.
The Defending Champion: Cara Gainer
Cara Gainer earned her first LET title at Rabat just over a year ago, winning a tense playoff against India’s Diksha Dagar in the 2025 edition. The Englishwoman closed with three birdies in her final four holes to force the playoff in the first place — and she has spoken this week about the calm patience that comes from already having held the trophy at this venue.
Gainer’s 2026 season has been steady rather than spectacular. Her best result so far is a runner-up finish at April’s Investec South African Women’s Open, and she has logged four top-five results since lifting last year’s trophy. The defense in Rabat doubles as a search for her first win of the new season.
The 17-Year-Old To Watch: Anna Huang
If anyone has the form to upend the field, it’s Canadian teenager Anna Huang. Huang turned professional in 2025 at 16 years old and immediately delivered back-to-back LET wins at the La Sella Open and the Lacoste Ladies Open de France in September. She has already racked up four top-ten finishes in 2026, including a third-place result at the Amundi German Masters, which Leonie Harm won last week in a remarkable comeback story.
Huang’s age makes her statistically the youngest contender most weekends she tees up. Her game makes her one of the strongest. A win in Rabat would push her to three LET titles before her 18th birthday — rare company on tour.
The Local Story: Maha Haddioui And Morocco’s Seven
Seven Moroccans are in the field this week, and the highest-ranked among them, Maha Haddioui, will be making her 14th start in the Lalla Meryem Cup. The two-time Olympian has spoken about her pride in seeing the LET locker room visit her home country — and a victory by any Moroccan in Rabat would be tournament history.
Morocco’s investment in growing the women’s professional game — through Lalla Meryem Cup wildcards and youth pathways — has been a quiet success story for the LET. Watch the home contingent closely; the local crowd noise tends to push them into contention through the opening rounds.
A Unique Cross-Tour Showcase In Rabat
One detail makes this week genuinely unusual on the global professional calendar. The Lalla Meryem Cup plays on the Blue Course while the Trophy Hassan II PGA Tour Champions event runs simultaneously on the Red Course at the same property, in a rare collaboration between the LET and PGA Tour Champions. Spectators get a buy-one-watch-two weekend; the players get to share practice facilities with major champions teeing it up on the property next door.
It’s the kind of cross-tour showcase the women’s game has been pushing for as it builds toward what looks like a transformational LPGA broadcast year — more co-located events, more shared platforms, more eyeballs.
What This Means If You’re Following Along
The Lalla Meryem Cup teed off Thursday, May 21, and wraps up Saturday, May 23, with the 54-hole format meaning no cut and three full days of competitive scoring for every player in the field. International viewers can follow live leaderboards via the LET’s official site, and streaming is available in many markets through LET partner platforms.
If you’re picking favorites, lean toward Gainer (course knowledge, recent form) or Huang (best 2026 results in the field) — both have the kind of recent record that translates well to a tight Trent Jones layout that rewards precision over raw distance.
For amateurs paying attention, the Blue Course’s challenge offers a useful reminder of what the LET game does well. The yardage (6,449) is modest by men’s tour standards, but the wind, the green complexes and the par-73 setup mean putting is decisive — exactly why the putting gate drill and other distance-control drills matter more on courses like this than driver speed ever will.
Key Takeaways
The 2026 Lalla Meryem Cup is the LET’s 29th edition of one of Africa’s longest-running professional women’s events, played May 21-23 at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam in Rabat for a €450,000 purse. Defending champion Cara Gainer is back, 17-year-old Canadian Anna Huang represents the field’s brightest emerging story, and Morocco’s seven home players — led by Maha Haddioui — are pushing for what would be a historic first home win. The tournament’s rare parallel with the PGA Tour Champions’ Trophy Hassan II at the same venue gives global audiences a unique opportunity to watch women’s and senior men’s professional golf side by side on the same legendary property.
