Stephanie Meadow was the last player standing in the LPGA tour Q-School but, unfortunately for her, she left Daytona Beach without a full tour card for the 2015 season.
Having watched Karlin Beck hole-out with a 75-foot chip shot on the 11th hole of their play-off for the 20th and final full card, Meadow, needing to replicate the feat to extend their marathon fare, failed with her own effort.
After 101 holes of golf, five rounds in qualifying and a further 11 holes in the play-offs, Meadow came up just short in her efforts to win a full LPGA tour card. Meadow, ranked 105th in the world, and who only turned professional at the US Women’s Open at Pinehurst in June, can still plan on an extensive playing schedule for 2015.
In earning LPGA tour status with a Category 17 exemption, the 22-year-old Ulsterwoman can expect to play in more than a dozen tournaments on next year’s LPGA tour, with the back-up of also playing on the Symetra Tour, which serves as a developmental feeder circuit to the main tour.
Guaranteed place
Meadow is also guaranteed a place at next year’s US Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania, thanks to her third-place finish in Pinehurst. The top-10 finishers in the US Open earn exemptions into the following year’s championship.
Seven players had finished in tied-18th after Sunday’s fifth and final round of qualifying, which led to a three-hole aggregate play-off (after which only one player fell by the wayside) and then on to a sudden-death play-off. Play was suspended due to darkness on Sunday night with three players – Beck, Meadow and Casey Grice – left fighting for the final spot.
In what seemed like a never-ending story for those involved in the play-off for the 20th and final full status card, and after all three tied the first three holes, Grice was next to be eliminated on the fourth.
Beck and Meadow finished their combat on the fifth play-off hole of the day, their 11th in all. Meadow went over the back of the green; Beck, an American who previously held a full tour card in 2012 and 2013, came up short but then holed out from 75 feet to claim the precious ticket to full status after Meadow failed to follow her in. “We played that hole so many times and I knew exactly how it was going to break. It was definitely the shot of my life so far,” Beck told lpga.com.
Sponsors’ invites
Meadow, a graduate of Alabama, finished her amateur career on the British and Irish team that lost to the USA in the Curtis Cup earlier in the year before turning professional. She signed with US-based management agency Blue Giraffe, which also includes world number 10
Lexi Thompson
on its books, and can expect to get a number of sponsors’ invites on top of those tournaments her Category 17 status get her in to play. Meadow is the first Irish golfer to have LPGA tour status.
Those players finishing in the top 20 earned full tour cards, whilst those ranked 21-45 received category 17 status. Meadow is ranked 23rd from the final results, giving her the third category 17 status and the prospect of playing in more than a dozen events.
England's Charley Hull, who played on the European team which won the Solheim Cup last year, also earned conditional status. Hull, already a tournament winner on the Ladies European Tour, missed out on the play-off by two strokes to finish in 28th place. For perspective, Katy Harris, who finished 44th at the final Q-School in 2013, played in 11 LPGA Tour events this season.
