Meet the players who played their way onto the LPGA for 2023.
After a fortnight of pressure-packed golf, 46 players representing 21 different countries earned LPGA status for 2023 through Q-Series. A total of 23 of the 46 players will be LPGA rookies.
Hae Ran Ryu earned medalist honors, finishing at 29 under. The KLPGA player came into the event ranked 50th in the world. Ryu broke 70 in six of the eight rounds.
“I didn’t think that I could earn the LPGA tour card so soon,” said Ryu. “It’s still unreal to me that I could play on the LPGA tour.”
Three teenagers earned LPGA status for the first time, including former Netflix star Alexa Pano. Two players who are 30 and over are LPGA members for the first time.
Former Wake Forest player Ines Laklalech made history by becoming the first LPGA member from Morocco as well as North Africa and the Arab region.
Six players turned professional at the start of Q-Series. Two of those players earned LPGA status: Valery Plata and Natthakritta Vongtaveelap.
Plata, a fifth-year senior at Michigan State, prepped for final exams all throughout the tournament.
“I think it was good for me to just go home, stop thinking about what happened on the golf course and just think about school,” said Plata, who was 4 over in her first nine holes on Day 1 and finished the tournament 25 under.
Players who finished in positions 1-20 earned category 14 LPGA status, while those in positions 21-45 will be in category 15. Players in category 14 will be ranked higher on the priority status list that fills tournament fields. Players are listed in the order of their finish at Q-Series.
To wit: Of the 17 Q Series grads last year who kept their LPGA card in 2022, only 4 were below 20th. The lowest were a pair at T35: Linn Grant (who despite only playing the non-US events incredibly was 56th in CME points) and Caroline Inglis who got the final card at No. 100.
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.
“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.
Meet 12 of the players set for the 144-hole grind.
One hundred players will tee it up this week at LPGA Q-Series, an eight-round grind that begins on Dec. 1 and ends Dec. 11. The first week will be contested at the RTJ Trail at Magnolia Grove in Mobile, Alabama, at the Crossings and Falls courses.
The field will be cut to top 70 and ties after the first week of competition. The second week of competition will take place at Highland Oaks Golf Course in Dothan, Alabama.
A total of 45 players will receive LPGA status in 2023. This is the first year that players were required to turn professional before entering Q-Series. A total of six players turned pro for this week: Nataliya Guseva, Minji Kang, Ashley Lau, Heather Lin, Valery Plata and Natthakritta Vongtaveelap.
Players in the top 75 of the Rolex Rankings automatically advanced to the final stage. Those players include: Yuna Nishimura (44), Hae Ran Ryu (51) and Minami Katsu (56).
Players who finish in the top 20 of Q-Series will fall under Category 14 of the LPGA Priority List. Those who finish 21-45 and ties earn Category 15 and Epson Tour status Category C.
Those who complete all four rounds before the cut earn Epson Tour status.
This year’s field features an eclectic group of players, including former college hotshots, up-and-comers and a former Netflix star.
“No one really wants to be here,” said Dewi Weber, who finished 101st on the CME points list this year, one position shy of a full card.
“The vibes are always really, really weird at Q-school. But I was a rookie on the LPGA, but I feel like I’m kind of a vet when it comes to Q-school because I’ve done this now four times, even though I don’t want to but I have.”
For the third time since 2017 and for the sixth time in the last 11 years, the Michigan State Women’s Golf team has won the Big Ten Championship.
Michigan State was -11 on the day as a team in the Big Ten Championship, which was played at TPC River’s Bend in Maineville, Ohio. Valery Plata led the Spartans with a total score of -5. Paz Marfa also shot under par with a score of -2.
