The two weeks of LPGA Tour Q-Series that ended on Sunday might be the two longest weeks in women’s golf. Players compete over eight tournament rounds to try to earn status on the LPGA Tour for the coming year, the top 45 and ties having that dream fulfilled (those outside the top 20 also get Symetra Tour status).
That collective sigh you hear out of Highland Oaks in Dothan, Ala.? It’s those at the top of the leader board exhaling. The higher you finish at Q-Series, the better your position on the priority list for 2022. And the higher you are on the priority list, the more LPGA Tour starts you get.
South Korea’s Na Rin An won Q-Series medalist honors, passing Pauline Roussin-Bouchard in the final round with a closing 66. Here is more on An and six notable players who got LPGA status for 2022:
Na Rin An
Q-Series Finish: Win (33-under 541)
Q-Series was the 25-year-old’s second time competing in the U.S. The last four seasons she’s been playing on the Korean LPGA Tour, where she’s won twice. She played in the 2021 BMW Ladies Championship, an LPGA Tour event held in her home country and pulled out a T-3. “I'm excited to be able to travel to different countries and I'm also looking forward to playing with players that I've only been able to see on TV,” An said after getting her card.
Atthaya Thitkul
David Cannon
Q-Series Finish: third (26-under 548)
Thitkul will be an LPGA rookie in 2022, but she entered Q-Series ranked No. 18 in the world. In May, the 18-year-old from Thailand received a sponsor’s exemption into the Honda LPGA Thailand and finished second, one shot behind winner Ariya Jutanugarn. She played the 2021 season on the Ladies European Tour, where she finished in the top-five 11 times, including two wins to win both Player-of-the-Year and Rookie-of-the-Year honors. Her performance on the LET earned her a start at the Evian Championship, and she took full advantage of the opportunity, finishing fifth.
Emily Kristine Pedersen
Charlie Crowhurst/R&A
Q-Series Finish: T-14 (12-under 562)
Pedersen’s career started out fast. She joined Denmark’s national team when she was only 12 years old in 2008. She turned pro as an 18-year-old in 2014. A year later, she was LET Rookie of the Year. Two years after that, Pedersen was playing on the LPGA Tour and had made the European Solheim Cup team. But being shutout in three matches in Des Moines was a blow to her self-confidence. She lost her LPGA status after the 2018 season and struggled to find good results when returning to the LET. Finally, in 2020, things started to turn around when she grabbed four LET wins. This past summer, she also changed her relationship with the Solheim Cup by going 3-1-0 for a victorious European side at Inverness Club.
Hinako Shibuno
Atsushi Tomura
Q-Series Finish: T-20 (10-under 564)
The 2019 AIG Women’s Open was the first time the native of Japan played outside of her home country. She shocked the golf world, and herself, by winning the major championship. While having the option to accept full LPGA Tour status after the win, Shibuno turned it down and instead returned to Japan to continue playing on the Japanese LPGA Tour. Having now earned her card nearly two and a half years later, Shibuno will finally start her LPGA Tour career.
Liz Nagel
Charles McQuillan
Q-Series Finish: T-32 (six-under 568)
Nagel wrote about her journey in a first-person story for Golf Digest two weeks ago, as a junior at Michigan State, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. After removing the tumor and undergoing treatments, Nagel was told by doctors she was cancer free. Though she still has days where she feels extreme exhaustion as a result of the cancer and treatments, she’s been playing professionally since 2015. She had two top-20 finishes on the LPGA Tour in 2021, with her 17th at the ISPS Handa World Invitational in Northern Ireland being her best LPGA Tour finish.
Gina Kim
Ezra Shaw
Q-Series Finish: T-35 (five-under 569)
Kim earned her spot in Q-Series by starting at Stage I of Q-School back in August, and earning medalist honors there. Getting LPGA Tour status is a little more complicated for Kim than it is for most other players in the top 45: Kim’s an amateur (one of four to earn cards on Sunday) who is wrapping up her senior season at Duke. That means the 21-year-old has a decision to make: Will she turn pro immediately? Or, will she defer her tour card until she wraps up her season in May, allowing her to compete a full four years for the Blue Devils? The difficulty with turning pro in May is that she’d be joining the tour about halfway through the season, giving herself fewer opportunities to earn the points necessary to keeping her card.
Mariah Stackhouse
Kevin C. Cox
Q-Series Finish: T-41 (four-under 570)
Stackhouse turned pro in 2017 after graduating from Stanford, where she was a four-time All-American. She is the seventh African American woman to earn an LPGA Tour card. Since starting her LPGA Tour career in 2017, Stackhouse has five top-10 career finishes, but 2021 was a tough year for Stackhouse; she only made three cuts, forcing her return to Q-Series.