MY Road to the LPGA
The road to the LPGA is basically a collection of "mini-tours" and State Opens, all designed to prepare a player for LPGA Q-School in the fall. That road starts with developmental tours, which feeds into the Symetra Tour (the LPGA equivalent of the Web.com/Korn Ferry Tour) and the Symetra Tour feeds into the LPGA.There are three developmental tours on which I'll play: Cactus Tour (based largely in AZ and SoCal), the Women's All Pro Tour (based in Texas-ish), and the Eggland’s Best Tour (based in FL).
Needless to say, COVID-19 has messed up even the best plans, but it now looks like the first leg of my professional journey will start with the CoBank Colorado Women’s Open and then I’ll head to Dallas for three WAPT events over about 18 days. I’ll also be playing the Michigan Women’s Open, the Florida Women’s Open and the Connecticut Women’s Open. The first stage of Q School is October 10-14 in Naples, FL (well, it was when I wrote this and now it’s canceled…but it’s still part of The Road).
LPGA Qualifying School is really a misnomer. It is not, as people think, a school that teaches a player to be a pro. It’s simply the name of the tournament series the LPGA uses to tender its allocation of access to the Symetra Tour and the LPGA Tour. Q School has three stages, the first of which is usually in Desert Palms, CA in August, but it has been rescheduled to October 15-20 in Venice, FL. There will be about 300 players in First Stage, a percentage of whom advance to Second Stage, now being held in November at a location TBD (oops…again, it won’t be this year!).
Of those Second Stagers, about 100 advance to Third Stage, called the “Q Series,” usually held in Pinehurst in October over two weeks. The top 30-ish finishers (and ties) from Q Series receive their full status LPGA Cards (as do the top 100 money winners from the current season, the top 10 Symetra Tour money winners and a few other special exemptions from other worldwide tours). The remaining players receive full time Symetra Tour status. The rest head back to developmental tours and to Q School 2021. Learn more about LPGA Q School by visiting LPGA.com and clicking on Q-School.
My job this year is all about learning how to be a professional. It's really about on-the-job training, just as any first job would be out of college. This is my "cubicle,” and my first step toward the C-suite. We also look at it like any start-up business: it’s a 24-36 month investment that hopefully sets up a profitable future. To take some of the pressure off, of course, we are positioning it as much as an adventure as it is my job. It's my “Pro-venture!”
The reality is I know I'm not yet ready for the LPGA, but I'm confident my best golf is in front of me. There are very few girls who go from junior golf or college golf right to the LPGA, and it's totally cool that those Phenoms get all the headlines (many of them are my friends!). And there are those players like me who know it’s going to take a few years and chose to keep chasing the dream - knowing it's the fighter in me that got me this far.
Thankfully there is no “draft,” and no one telling me I've reached the end of the line. There will always be a cubicle somewhere with my name on it, or another path within the golf community outside the ropes, but there will never be another time to take this particular shot. I'd live with regret if I didn't take my chance and I am grateful to my family and supporters for providing me the resources to take it. I'll continue to work my ass off, and with the singular focus of being "only a golfer," I already feel ready for a quantum leap. So, I am focusing on the long road. If we don't win, we learn - and in golf we learn often and a lot!
