Eight Korean golfers to fight for spot on LPGA Tour

Golf

Published: 01 Dec. 2022, 18:05

Eight Korean golfers to fight for spot on LPGA Tour

Hong Yae-eun tees off on the seventh hole during the first round of the LPGA Pelican Women's Championship golf tournament at Pelican Golf Club on Nov. 11 in Belleair, Florida. [AP/YONHAP]

Ryu Hae-ran tees off during the first round of the SK Shieldus SK Telecom Championship at Lavie Est Belle in Chuncheon, Gangwon, on Nov. 11. [KLPGA]

Eight Korean golfers will try their hand at earning a seat on the LPGA Tour at the LPGA Q-Series taking place in Lower Alabama from Thursday to Sunday.

Lee Mi-hyang, Lee Seul-ki, Kang Min-ji, Yoon Min-a, Hong Yae-eun, Park Kum-kang, Ryu Hae-ran and Jeon Ji-won are the eight Korean golfers scheduled to try and qualify for the LPGA Tour next season.

Forty-five LPGA Tour cards for the 2023 season are up for grabs at the Q-Series that will continue for two weeks.

The tournament takes a 144-hole, stroke-play format. A total of 100 players compete to earn eligibility for the 2023 LPGA Tour. The field will be cut to the top 70 and ties after the first week, when the tournament will be played on the Crossings and Falls courses at RTJ Trail at Magnolia Grove.

There are four rounds each week. The field will be equally distributed between the two courses for the first round, then the courses will be flipped for round two while groups will be paired according to the opening round scores. In round three, players will be paired again according to their second-round score, with the high scores heading to Crossings course and the lower scores playing the Falls course. For round four, they will switch courses and be paired again within the course.

One of the more experienced Korean golfers going into the Q-series is No. 119 Hong, who played the qualifying event last year, finishing tied for 12th and reaching the LPGA Tour for the first time in 2022.

However, Hong had a rough rookie season on the tour, missing seven consecutive cuts before beginning to find back her form in the last few events of the season.

Hong was only able to card her first top 10 finish in October, when the Tour flew to Korea for the BMW Ladies Championship where she played as a sponsor invitee.

Alongside Hong, KLPGA favorite Ryu will also be hoping to get some LPGA experience under her belt next season. Ryu won one KLPGA title this season at the Nexen SaintNine Masters 2022.

Last season, An Na-rin and Choi Hye-jin, alongside Hong, had also earned their Tour cards with An topping the leaderboard while Choi tied for eighth.

BY YUN SO-HYANG [yun.sohyang@joongang.co.kr]