Tag: Dana Finkelstein

Eight-round Q-Series gauntlet ends with 46 players securing LPGA status for 2023

The first full-field LPGA event of the season is in March in Arizona.

Charlotte Thomas described this week as a “do or die” chapter of her professional career. Six years into the play-for-pay ranks, Thomas felt that whatever happened at Q-Series over the last eight rounds could be a sign.

In the end, the sign read: Back to the LPGA.

“I’m exhausted and ready for a drink,” said Thomas, who tied for 28th to earn back her tour card for 2023. A total of 46 players earned LPGA cards at Q-Series, a 144-hole grind that takes places over a fortnight in Alabama.

“I think when I look back on last year, I initially was disappointed that I lost my card and had to come back here,” said Thomas, “but I think the fact that I didn’t play golf for 16 months was – I kind of don’t give myself enough credit sometimes I don’t think.”

Thomas missed the 2021 LPGA season while struggling to find a treatment for chronic eczema.

Everyone in the field in Dothan has a story. Some have been toiling in the professional ranks for years, while others, like Michigan State’s Valery Plata, turned pro just before Q-Series. Plata tied for third with recent Stanford grad Aline Krauter.

Tournament winner Hae Ran Ryu, a KLPGA veteran, is ranked 50th in the world. (Epson Tour photo)

South Korea’s Hae Ran Ryu, currently No. 50 in the Rolex Rankings, topped the field at 29 under, clipping Bailey Tardy by two strokes.

Two years ago, Tardy missed out on earning her LPGA card through the Epson Tour by $343. Once again, Tardy finished 11th on the money list this year, missing the 10th spot by $1,765.

“I actually told my caddie just walking down, I think 15, and really anybody close to me knows that I wasn’t even going to sign up for QII,” said Tardy. “I think I signed up 15 minutes before the deadline, and that was because my coach told me to and was like, this is your opportunity, you can’t give that up.

“And I didn’t want to come to Q-School at all. Even at the beginning of the year I told everyone, I’m not going to Q-School. I’m not doing it. That’s not what I want to do.

“And I’m so happy I did.”

The top 20 players and ties earn category 14 status on the LPGA, while those who finished 21-45 and ties earned category 15 status. Players who finished outside the top 45 and completed all four rounds before the cut earned Epson Tour status for 2023.

“Feels good, especially since our first event of the year would be my home course in Phoenix,” said Dana Finkelstein, who tied for 15th.

LPGA Q-SERIES: Leaderboard

“Superstition Mountain is kind of where golf started for me. The Safeway Open out there, I was like 12 or 13 and I went to go watch Annika [Sorenstam] and Morgan [Pressel] and all them. I have pictures of my awkward 12-year-old self at the golf course, and now it’s cool that I’m going to be playing and some other 12-year-old is going to be watching me. It’s pretty cool.”

The first full-field LPGA event of the season, the LPGA Drive On Championship, will take place March 23-26, 2023, in Gold Canyon, Arizona.

Finkelstein, an LPGA veteran, shared 15th with 2022 Alabama grad Polly Mack, who held on despite a closing 76. Mack played the first 72 holes without a caddie but employed a good friend for the second week.

Alexa Pano, the 18-year-old who starred in the Netflix series “The Short Game,” shot 68-67 over the weekend yet missed the top 20 by one stroke. Pano turned professional in the spring and finished 13th on the Epson Tour money list this season.

Jaravee Boonchant was one of three former Duke players who finished in the top 45. Boonchant had former Blue Devil teammate Gina Kim on her bag for Q-Series. The pair, along with Ana Belac (T-38), helped Duke win the 2019 NCAA title. (Kim earned her LPGA card earlier this year via the Epson Tour.)

Lindy Duncan, a former NCAA Player of the Year at Duke, shot three consecutive 73s to also take a share of 38th.

“I keep asking Gina questions that probably shouldn’t be asked on the course, but she was really helpful and very supportive,” said Boonchant, who tied for 21. “And she honestly was like the one who kind of put me in place and shape my thought and my mental game.

“I’m really thankful for that.”

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As another storm approaches Florida, there’s much on the line for players at Pelican looking to shore up LPGA status for 2023

“For me, I’m on the outside looking in, so it’s kind of like a free week to go out and try to play the best I can.”

Caroline Inglis tries not to look at the Race to CME Globe points list too often. She mostly leaves that to her husband. But earlier this year, when Inglis was No. 148 on the list, she panicked after realizing that she’d missed the deadline to sign up for Stage II of LPGA Q-School.

“I was freaking out,” said Inglis, who feared she wouldn’t have any status for 2023. “It’s just funny to look back on that.”

Now 99th on the CME points list, Inglis doesn’t need to worry about Stage 2, which was postponed due to Hurricane Ian and takes place next week in Venice, Florida. But she would like to stay inside the top 100, which essentially shores up full status for 2023.

While much of the attention will be paid to those trying to qualify for the season-ending CME Group Tour championship and the season-ending awards – and for good reason – those battling to finish in the top 100 have much to play for at this week’s Pelican Women’s Championship as well.

As if that’s not enough pressure, consider that Tropical Storm Nicole could wreak havoc on the week with heavy rain and strong wind. Tournament officials are prepared to move into Monday if necessary given that daylight is short for the 120-player field.

“It’s a very good test this week,” said Inglis, noting that she’s been learning how to focus on her process rather than what she can’t control – like the weather.

“I do have quite a bit on anxiety in general,” said Inglis. “I’m a very anxious person about certain things.”

She’s found ways to lower her anxiety levels, however, since she began working over the summer with Paul Dewland, a new sports psychologist Emma Talley recommended.

Inglis has posted three top-15 finishes in her last five starts since working with Dewland.

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Dana Finkelstein ranks 120th on the points list. Two weeks ago, she launched a new side business making digital swing silhouettes. While admittedly not an artsy person, the idea came when she and boyfriend Henry Fall bought a new house in Mesa, Arizona. They started looking around Etsy for decoration ideas and didn’t like what they saw.

The new business helps keep Finkelstein’s mind busy on something other than golf, though she’s taking whatever happens this week in stride.

“For me, I’m on the outside looking in, so it’s kind of like a free week to go out and try to play the best I can,” said Finkelstein. “If I don’t, fine, I go to Q-School. If I do, I get a longer offseason.”

Those players who fall between Nos. 101 to 125 don’t lose LPGA status but are in Category 15 on the LPGA Priority List. They can go to Q-Series later this year to improve their status. The top 45 finishers from Q-Series fall in Category 14 and are listed in the order they finish.

The first player listed in Category 15 at the start of the 2022 season was Celine Herbin at No. 182. Consider that full-field events have 144 players or less, depending on daylight.

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Dana Finkelstein’s one mission over the offseason? Get longer

Dana Finkelstein knew she couldn’t win on the LPGA unless she got longer. So she did.

BOCA RATON, Fla. – Dana Finkelstein’s license lists her at 5 feet, 2 inches tall, but she admits that’s probably being generous. More like 5 feet, 1 inch.

Finkelstein never expected to overpower a golf course. Yet at the end of last season, she knew a change was in order. Simply put: Finkelstein felt she couldn’t win on the LPGA unless she got longer.

So she hired a new swing coach in Milo Lines and got to work immediately after Q-Series last November. It didn’t take long for the decision to pay off.

The 26-year-old from Chandler, Arizona, made her way into the new Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio at the last minute and recorded a top-20 finish. She’s hitting it 15 to 20 yards longer off the tee and a club longer with her irons. The extra swing speed paid off handsomely on the soggy South Florida course.

“I think it’s going to be a big game-changer for me this year,” she said, “being able to go for par 5s in two and have more wedges in my hand.”

Finkelstein finished third last season in driving accuracy on the LPGA, hitting 82.9 percent of fairways. She was 150thin driving distance at 246 yards. Finkelstein didn’t need to change her identity as a player, but there is such a thing as too short.

Dana Finkelstein with her caddie during the 2019 Pure Silk Championship on the River Course at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia. (Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)

Her backswing has changed from a laid-off position to more on plane, which Finkelstein said allows her to shallow the club and create more speed with her lower body.

“There was no way I was going to be able to win a golf tournament out here with where I was at last year,” she said.

As the tour grows deeper in talent, the players have gotten longer too. Last year, 16 players averaged over 270 in driving distance on the LPGA. That’s up from one player in both 2014 and 2015.

Finkelstein’s average of 246.033 would’ve ranked much higher than 150th not long ago. In 2014, Morgan Pressel was 87th in driving distance at 246.256. Stacy Lewis was 89th at 246.330 in 2015.

Finkelstein arrived in Boca Raton on the alternate list. She played in the Monday qualifier, didn’t make it, and stuck around hoping somebody might withdraw. She wasn’t optimistic given how early it was in the season, until she heard that sponsor exemption Madison Pressel, Morgan’s sister, was sick. Pressel gave Finkelstein the nod last Thursday, eight minutes before her tee time. She ran to the 10th tee to get ready.

“It was definitely probably the most nervous I’ve ever been on the first tee,” she said of the rushed start.

It turned out well. Finkelstein hopes the $21,380 paycheck gets her into the ANA Inspiration. She played the Dinah Shore course three times while at UNLV, finishing runner-up in the Mountain West Conference Championship. She has unfinished business there.

Finkelstein was still in college when Mo Martin, who is listed at 5 feet, 2 ½ inches, won the 2014 AIG Women’s British Open at Birkdale. Another Mo, Moriya Jutanugarn, won the LA Open two years ago. She’s 5-foot-1.

“It was in there,” said Finkelstein of the power she needed to get succeed at the next level.

She’s off to a flying start.