Weber Tardy brings plenty of prospects to Alabama ahead of another LPGA Q-Series series | LPGA

At the end of the season, some LPGA and Epson Tour players are disappointed and without status for the following season. The place that stings the most is the first player outside the bubble – No. 11 on the official Epson Tour money list and No. 101 in the LPGA Tour race at the CME Globe.

Epson Tour winner Bailey Tardy fought hard to the finish in pursuit of a coveted top-10 spot on the money list and the 2023 LPGA Tour membership that has it resulted. The former Georgia Bulldog, who is also a Peach State native, concluded the season with three top-5 performances in four weeks. A solo third in the Epson Tour Championship unfortunately wasn’t enough, and Tardy narrowly missed out on the Epson Tour graduation, ultimately finishing 11th in the 2022 Ascensus race for the card. It’s the third time in three years that she’s come within a hair’s breadth of earning LPGA Tour status. (Tardy was No. 12 in 2021 and No. 6 in 2020 when only five cards were awarded due to a shortened schedule.)

Since that painful day at the LPGA International, Tardy has dusted herself off, enjoying the golf she’s been playing lately. In mid-November, the 26-year-old traveled with her father to California for the TaylorMade Pebble Beach Invitational, a unique event that brings together players from the PGA, LPGA and Korn Ferry tours along with PGA Tour champions. . Tardy finished T29 and the experience gave him a different perspective before heading to Alabama for the LPGA Q-Series.

“It was just nice to be in competitive mode, and obviously at Pebble Beach as well,” Tardy said. “I live in Orlando right now so going to Pebble has given me different weather and a different environment to train and play in. I haven’t really played in cold weather, luckily it’s going to be pretty cool this week, but it was a plus to go in. I had a different atmosphere of the weather, wind, fog, stuff like that.

As she focuses on the Q series, Tardy will try to ignore how stressful the next eight tournament rounds can be. Instead, she sees it as two separate tournaments, which is easy compared to the season-ending four weeks she embarked on in September. Her plan is to stay positive, keep up her pace, and surround herself with friends and have fun while she’s not on the course.

“I’m going to play golf, and if it’s good enough to get my LPGA Tour card, great,” Tardy said. “If I get beat up by other people, then that’s what happens. But I’m just going to go out there and try to play my best and play the game that I know how to do and see where that puts me in the pack.

LPGA Tour rookie Dewi Weber was in the same boat as Tardy, finishing his inaugural season on the Tour at No. 101 in the CME Globe race. The University of Miami alum, who has previously competed on the Epson Tour, said she struggled to find her way at the start of the season. By the time she found her groove and saw her game fall into place, it was too late.

“I have mixed feelings about my season,” Weber said. “Obviously to finish 101st really sucks. There really is no other way to say it. But yeah, we’re here just trying to improve my status.

Weber’s disappointment on the course has recently been overshadowed by positivity in his personal life. The 26-year-old just got engaged to longtime girlfriend Jentrie and while it doesn’t directly affect her swing or the way she strikes the ball, Weber is heading to Q-Series as happy as she is. she never was and will rely on the support of her new fiancée to help her through this latest challenge.

“I’m really well placed, I want to say mentally, as in my life. So that’s obviously good,” Weber said. “My fiancée and I keep in touch every day honestly, and she asks me how it went on the course, and I think it went well or not. It’s not because I don’t want to not talk about it, but that’s because there are other more fun and important things in life. So we talk about silly stuff. I get daily pictures of my dog. We talk about what he there for dinner.

“I make sure when I get to my AirBNB I’m putting on a show or going to read a book, do a puzzle, whatever. I’m not really into the scores or anything that’s going on here because I don’t have much influence on what’s going on here. Outside of class, I try to make it a fun week because it’s really hard to make Q-School a fun week.”

Although the Dutch native was a rookie on the LPGA Tour this season, Weber considers herself a Q-Series veteran. Her past experiences in Alabama will allow her to take a “cooler” approach to both. grueling weeks. She knows it won’t be easy and is ready to fight for a top 10 spot, but she will again prioritize fun on the golf course, end results aside.

“If I can have fun during Q-school and I can enjoy playing golf, those are two things that are pretty important to me,” Weber said. “Not necessarily just for this week, but if I can do it in such a high pressure situation then I can probably do it next year more consistently than I did this year. If I can do this week, I’d be pretty happy, probably regardless of the results.