Seven years later, one of the enduring highlights of the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Rolling Green Golf Club, the William Flynn gem in Springfield, Delaware County, was the performance in 36 holes of qualifying for match play by a 13-year-old kid from California by the name of Lucy Li.
My 38-year journalism career had come to an abrupt end earlier that year, but I decided to try to keep this blog, which I had started as a supplement to my golf coverage for the Delaware County Daily Times, going.
So, there was no way I was going to pass up a USGA championship being held not all that far from the office I used to work out of every day, back in the days when newspapers still had offices.
I was going to focus on the high school kids I had covered at the Daily Times, 2010 PIAA champion Aurora Kan, a Chichester product who had starred collegiately at Purdue, and one of Kan’s high school and Big Ten rivals, Jackie Rogowicz, a two-time PIAA runnerup at Pennsbury who had been a college standout at Penn State.
But you couldn’t help but notice this little Asian-American kid from Redwood Shores, Calif., especially after she had opened with a 4-under-par 67. Pretty sure it was her mom pushing around Li’s bag in a pushcart that appeared fully loaded for any possible consequence.
Two years earlier, Li had become the youngest player to ever play in a U.S. Women’s Open when she teed it up at the Pinehurst Resort’s No. 2 Course at age 11. So, it’s not like she completely came out of nowhere.
Li would add a 3-under 68 in the second round for a 7-under 135 total that left her in second place, two shots behind qualifying medalist Mariel Galdiano, a UCLA star who had played for the United States in a Curtis Cup loss to Great Britain & Ireland earlier that summer at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club in suburban Dublin.
Some of the old-timers at Rolling Green were dumbfounded that a 13-year-old kid could take their golf course like that. But Rolling Green’s treacherous Flynn green complexes were as difficult as ever. Li was just that good.
I still have a daily program from that week with most of the match-play bracket filled in. Four of the players who earned a spot in match play have won major professional championships since then, Australian Hannah Green, Yuka Saso, a pretty precocious 15-year-old herself back then from the Philippines, Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit, and Frenchwoman Celine Boutier.
In the first week of December, Li matched par in the final round of the six-round marathon that is the LPGA Q-Series in Mobile, Ala. to make sure that she would be back in big leagues of women’s golf in 2024 as she finished in the group tied for 17th place with a 13-under 217 total.
The LPGA Q-Series was actually down from its first couple of iterations when it was eight rounds split over two weeks with a cut following 72. It was only six rounds this time, back for the third year in a row at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Magnolia Grove’s par-72 Crossings Course and par-71 Falls Course. There was a 72-hole cut again.
A finish in the top 20 and ties earned a player Category 14 status in the LPGA Tour pecking order with the rest of top 45 and ties having Category 15 status. Pretty sure the Category 15 people can get bumped from certain fields, but you still own an LPGA Tour card.
Everybody who made it to LPGA Q-Series is eligible to tee it up on the Epson Tour, the LPGA’s developmental circuit, in 2024.
Li had earned her LPGA Tour card for 2023 by finishing in third place in the season-long Race for the Card on the Epson Tour in 2022.
It was a bumpy ride for Li on the LPGA Tour this year as she made only 12 cuts in 21 starts. Her $117,024 in earnings forced Li back into the Q-Series to try to regain her LPGA Tour card for 2024.
It’s easy to forget that Li is still only 21-years old. But she handled the pressure of Q-Series like the experienced veteran that she is.
Not sure what the breakdown of courses was for the first four days, but pretty sure everybody played each course twice in the first four rounds before the cut was made with the survivors playing just the Crossings Course in the final two rounds.
Pretty sure they lost a day to weather over the weekend, so the final round, scheduled to be Tuesday, Dec. 5th, was played Wednesday, Dec. 6th.
After opening with a 70, Li ripped off back-to-back 67s in the second and third rounds and a 69 in the fourth round to reach 13-under before posting a pair of even-par 72s in the final two rounds.
Li chose not to go to college and I’m sure there were critics out there saying she was just another teen star that fizzled out, but that’s not really true. She played three years on the Epson Tour and admitted she lost her confidence and maybe a little passion for the game in 2021.
But a year later, focusing more on just enjoying playing the game she loves, she was one of the Epson Tour’s best players.
One of Li’s contemporaries in the junior ranks, Yealimi Noh, another Californian, also landed in the group tied for 17th place at Magnolia Grove at 13-under. Noh, too, had made it to the match-play bracket at Rolling Green.
Noh is all of 22 and after committing to UCLA, she reconsidered in the summer of 2018 and said she was going to turn pro. In that last summer of amateur golf, Noh swept to titles in the Girls Junior PGA Championship at the Kearney Hills Golf Links in Lexington, Ky. and the epic U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula.
Noh, at age 16, went off at Kearney Hills with a record-smashing 24-under total that beat a talented 15-year-old by the name of Rose Zhang by four shots. Yes, that Rose Zhang.
A year earlier Zhang, at 14-years old, had equaled the Girls Junior PGA Championship record by going 20-under at St. Albans’ Lewis & Clark Course in St. Albans, Mo. But 2018 would be the summer of Yealimi Noh in the junior ranks.
And despite being forced to regain her card at Q-Series this month, Noh has been pretty successful as a pro. She has made 59 cuts in 85 LPGA Tour starts and has banked $1.4 million and change. Noh went 2-1 as a captain’s pick for the U.S. team that fell to Europe in the Solheim Cup at The Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio in 2021.
After opening with a 70 at Magnolia Grove, Noh ripped off a 66 in the second round followed by a 70 in the third round and a 73 in the fourth round. A sparkling 5-under 67 at the Crossings Course in the fifth round got her to 12-under before she closed with a 1-under 71.
This time last year, I recapped that memorable final day of the 2018 U.S. Girls’ Junior when then 13-year-old Floridian Alexa Pano edged Li, 1-up, in the semifinals and then played a scheduled 36-hole final the same day, falling 4 and 3, to Noh. Pano played 51 holes that day and Noh, who had defeated soon-to-be Duke star Gina Kim in the other semifinal, 3 and 2, played 49 holes.
Pano had survived Q-Series a year ago and, despite struggling at times as a teen-ager in the big leagues of women’s golf this year, became an LPGA Tour winner when she captured the title in the ISPS Handa Invitational in Northern Ireland, an event co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour (LET), on her 19th birthday in August.
Pano, too, was in the field for the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green, but at age 11, soon to turn 12, failed to make it into the match-play bracket.
The moral of the story is that college golf is not the only path to the LPGA Tour. Li, Noh and Pano may have taken the road less traveled, and arguably a tougher road, but they’ll be playing on the LPGA Tour in 2024.
Robyn Choi, a 25-year-old Australian, was the medalist in the LPGA Q-Series with a 29-under 401 total. Choi, another study in perseverance, fired back-to-back 64s in the third and fourth rounds and closed with back-to-back 4-under 68s in the final two rounds at the Crossings Course.
Choi, a collegiate standout at Colorado, qualified for the LPGA Tour in 2019, but couldn’t stick. She’s battled for five seasons on the Epson Tour with 16 top-10 finishes and $244,851 in earnings.
Mao Saigo, a 22-year-old from Japan, and So Mi Lee, a 24-year-old from South Korea, shared second place, each landing on 26-under 404.
Saigo ripped off consecutive rounds of 65, 66 and 66 in the third, fourth and fifth rounds before closing with a 2-under 70 in the final round at the Crossings Course. Lee made a big move when she posted a scintillating 9-under 63 in the fifth round at the Crossings Course before closing with a 1-over 73.
The top American finisher at Q-Series was 34-year-old veteran Mina Harrigae of Monterey, Calif., who finished alone in fourth place with a 21-under 490 total.
Harrigae has been on the LPGA Tour since 2010, has 20 top-10 finishes and $4.4 million earnings. One of those top-10s was a runnerup finish in the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open at the Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C.
Harrigae was in good position going into the final round, but made sure by finishing up with a solid 5-under 67 at the Crossings Course.
Another American, former Baylor standout Gurleen Kaur, a 23-year-old from Houston, shared fifth place with Polly Mack, a 24-year-old from Germany who starred at Alabama, each landing on 20-under 410, a shot behind Harrigae.
Kaur, coming off a runnerup finish in the Epson Tour Championship at LPGA International’s Jones Course in Daytona Beach, Fla. in October, was under par in all six of her Q-Series rounds at Magnolia Grove, closing with a 4-under 68 at the Crossings Course.
Mack was a rookie on the LPGA Tour in 2023 after spending 2022 on the Epson Tour, but she was back in Q-Series battling to retain her playing privileges for next year. Mack, who started her college career at UNLV, probably had some supporters at Magnolia Grove from her time with the Crimson Tide.
Mack fired a 7-under 65 in the fifth round at the Crossings Course before closing with a 3-under 69.
I’ll be keeping a close eye on the spring sprint to the NCAA Championship and Q-Series will usually see a college team lose a player to the LPGA Tour.
College players used to be able to go through Q-Series and have the option to join the LPGA Tour following the end of the spring college season. But the LPGA Tour took that option away a couple of years ago and players have to commit to turning pro before continuing through the Q-School process to the Q-Series finale.
Savannah Grewal, a Canadian who helped Clemson capture the first Atlantic Coast Conference championship in the history of the program last spring, opened with a 66 in Q-Series and never looked back to earn her LPGA Tour card by finishing in a tie for 10th place with an 18-under 412 total.
Grewal closed with a solid 4-under 68 at the Crossings Course to cap a really strong showing at Magnolia Grove.
Grewal had played for the Tigers this fall, closing out her college career by finishing in a tie for 29th place in The Landfall Tradition at the Country Club of Landfall’s Pete Dye Course in Wilmington, N.C. in October.
Grewal ripped off a spectacular 9-under 63 at the Palouse Ridge Golf Club in the final round of the NCAA’s Pullman Regional last spring to lead Clemson to a second-place finish that sent the Tigers to the NCAA Championship for only the second time in program history.
In looking around while searching for some intel for this post, I became aware of some big names in college golf who will be returning this spring.
The USGA released a list of 12 players who will participate in a practice session next month in Florida as candidates for the U.S. team for the 43rd Curtis Cup Match under the captaincy of South Jersey legend Megan Stasi, a 10-time winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship.
Included on that list are Rachel Kuehn, a fifth-year player for reigning NCAA champion Wake Forest and No. 9 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), Latanna Stone, a fifth-year player at LSU and No. 19 in the Women’s WAGR, and reigning U.S. Women’s Amateur champion Megan Schofill, a fifth-year player at Auburn and No. 11 in the Women’s WAGR.
The Curtis Cup Match will be a home game for Great Britain & Ireland at Sunningdale Golf Club in England. Usually a spring event, next year’s Curtis Cup won’t tee off until Aug. 30. The candidates for the U.S. team will be fodder for its own blog post in the near future.
Kuehn of Asheville, N.C. earned the clinching point in each of the last two U.S. Curtis Cup victories, the pandemic delayed affair in 2021 at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales and the 2022 edition at Merion Golf Club’s iconic East Course in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township.
Stone of Riverview, Fla. was a teammate of Kuehn’s on the U.S. side at Merion as the home team rolled to a 15.5-4.5 victory, the Red, White & Blue earning its third straight win in the series.
Schofill, another Florida gal from Monticello, defeated Stone, 4 and 3, in the scheduled 36-hole final to claim the U.S. Women’s Amateur crown in August at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles.
The No. 1 player in the Women’s WAGR and a fifth-year player at LSU, Sweden’s Ingrid Lindblad, also let it be known at some point this fall that she plans to remain an amateur for the remainder of the college golf season. Lindblad and Stone would give LSU a formidable 1-2 punch at the top of the lineup if the Bayou Tigers can manage to get themselves a spot in the match-play bracket in next spring’s NCAA Championship at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.
Sounds like Lindblad feels like she has some unfinished business at LSU.
Couple of interesting names that finished in the group tied for 27th place at 11-under 419 in the LPGA Q-Series at Magnolia Grove were former Texas standout Kaitlyn Papp Budde and former Alabama star Lauren Stephenson.
The 25-year-old Papp Budde, the low amateur in the December U.S. Women’s Open in 2020 at Champions Golf Club in Houston, played on the LPGA Tour in 2022, but was on the Epson Tour this year. Papp Budde, a native of Austin, Texas, made 11 cuts in 15 starts on the Epson Tour.
Papp Budde was steady throughout the six rounds at Magnolia Grove, finishing up with rounds of 2-under 70 and 1-under 71 at the Crossings Course.
The 26-year-old Stephenson, a native of Lexington, S.C., has been on the LPGA Tour since her rookie season of 2019, has five top-10 finishes and has banked more than $1 million. She put up a 64 in the third round and was at 13-under following a 4-under 68 in the fifth round at the Crossings Course before closing with a 2-over 74.
Stephenson was a member of the powerful Alabama team that reached the NCAA Championship’s Final Match at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. in 2018 before falling to Arizona.
Sophia Schubert, the 2017 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion at San Diego Country Club in Chula Vista, Calif. and briefly a teammate of Papp Budde’s at Texas, will have an LPGA Tour card in 2024 after finishing in a tie for 38th place at Magnolia Grove with a 9-under 421 total.
The 27-year-old Schubert, a native of Oak Ridge, Tenn., has been on the LPGA Tour the last two seasons. She has a pair of top-10 finishes and has earned $830,393. One of those two top-10 finishes came in a major championship as Schubert was the runnerup in the 2022 Amundi Evian Championship in France.
Lucy Li, Stephenson and Schubert were teammates on a really strong U.S. side that rolled to a 17-3 victory over GB&I in the 2018 Curtis Cup Match at Quaker Ridge Golf Club, an A.W. Tillinghast gem in Scarsdale, N.Y.
Samantha Wagner, the Easton native who was a college standout at Florida, was back at Q-Series after struggling as a rookie on the LPGA Tour in 2023. Wagner made seven cuts in 16 starts and earned $72,161.
A year ago Wagner had finished in a tie for sixth place in 144 holes of Q-Series at Magnolia Grove to finally make it to the big leagues after five years on the Epson Tour.
But the 27-year-old Wagner couldn’t survive the 72-hole cut at Magnolia Grove this time as she closed with a 2-over 73 at the Falls Course in the fourth round for a 2-under 284 total.
Wagner decided to turn pro after claiming medalist honors in a U.S. Women’s Open qualifier at Hidden Creek Golf Club at the Jersey Shore in 2017, using the occasion of the 2017 Open at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. to make her professional debut.
Wagner will likely head back to the Epson Tour with years of experience on that tour and on the LPGA Tour to bank on and try to give herself another shot to make it back to the LPGA Tour.
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