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Showdown of Marquee Names set for Sunday at LPGA Q School
They could be the next big draws on the LPGA tour and tomorrow will go head to head in the final round of the tour's Q School tournament. Michelle Wie, the teenage phenom, and Stacy Lewis, the first-year pro who made headlines in the U.S. Women's Open this year, will tee off in the final group Sunday morning at the LPGA International Champions course in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Lewis leads the field after four rounds at 15-under par. Wie is just one shot back at 14 under. Both are virtually certain of finishing the tournament in the top 20, thereby earning full playing status on the 2009 LPGA Tour. Wie is still refusing to talk with reporters covering the Q School. She did stop to sign a few autographs for fans after turning in her scorecard at the completion of today's round.
The field of 140 players was cut in half at the end of today's round. Seventy players will now be competing for the coveted 20 top slots in Sunday's fifth and final round. Making the top 20 is what every player in the field came here to do. For most of them, it will be wait (again) until next year. Here is how four players, featured in previous articles, stand going into Sunday.
Taya Battistella, a 29-year-old from Bend, Ore., failed in her second attempt at Q School. Her four-round score of 298 was eight shot above the cut line of 280. She will have to return to the Duramed Futures Tour in 2009 and begin the process all over again. The disappointment was evident on her face today.
Such emotion was also apparent on the face of Liz Stuart from Tampa, Fla. The 27-year-old Stuart missed the cut by nine strokes. Both Battistella and Stuart will have to spend another year vying for a spot on the LPGA Tour. It is usually a years-long struggle for most women pros to eventually make it to the LPGA. Years of disappointment are often part of the process. Years of falling short of their goal tests their determination and dedication to the game.
The dream is still alive, at least for one more day, for two other players. Lisa Ferrero from Lodi, Calif., shot a 72 and finished the first four days at 290, or 2-over par, right on the cut line and in a tie for 70th place. She will have to move past 50 other players in Sunday's final round to make it into the top 20. Ferrero has spent four seasons on the Duramed Futures Tour.
Jessica Carafiello, a native of Greenwich, Conn., is a shot lower (289) than Ferrero going into tomorrow. Most observers are projecting that it will take a five-day score of 5-under par to make it into the top 20. For Ferrero and Carafiello that means they will have to shoot scores in the mid-60s in order to have a realistic chance. Both of them are capable of shooting six or seven shots under par on any given day. But it may be too much to ask of them to shoot such low scores under the pressure they will be facing on Sunday.
When they tee it up on the first hole in the morning, players will know they will have to shoot a lot of birdies over the next 18 holes and not make any mistakes. The pressure will be on Ferrero and Carafiello, but it will also be on every player in the field. There will be intense satisfaction and huge disappointments at the end of the day. Twenty players will have achieved what they intended to when the week began. The other 120 will have fallen short and have to try all over again in 2009.
Dave Andrews is a Harvard-educated former television news reporter. He's also an avid golfer who has become a fan of the Duramed Futures Tour. His home course in Concord, N.H., is annually the site of one of the tour's events. The inspiration for Dave's 2007 novel, "Pops and Sunshine," came from meeting many of the young aspiring women golfers on that tour. Each of them has a passion, dedication and determination that he finds remarkable. His novel is a fictionalization of the dream that these young women share. To order Dave's book, visit http://popsandsunshine.com.
