2006 LPGA Qualifying School

The LPGA tour is without question the top women's golf league in the world by every measure. It has the longest and most storied history, the largest purses, and the players who play well there are universally considered the best in the world. Not surprisingly, players come from all over the world to play on this tour.

But there are only three ways to gain membership to the LPGA. The first, and the hardest, is to win an LPGA tournament. This is hardly easy, since even getting to play an event when you are not a member is difficult (it involves either being invited to do so by the sponsor, which doesn't happen very often unless you're Michelle Wie, or qualifying during a Monday qualifier. Or, you can play an event co-sponsored by a tour you belong to and the LPGA). In the last ten years, only three women have qualified for the LPGA in this manner, and all three are Korean golfers who won the LPGA's lone Korean event, which they were invited to play thanks to that event being co-sponsored by the Korean LPGA tour. This year, in fact, a woman earned her tour card in just this manner. Jin Joo Hong (pictured) won the Kolon-Hana Bank Championship in October, and now has a tour card on the LPGA for 2007 and 2008.

The second way to become a member of the tour is to play the official developmental tour of the LPGA, the Futures Tour, and finish in the top five on their money list for the season. This year, two Korean teenagers secured tour cards this way: Song Hee Kim (pictured below), who finished first on the money list, and In-Bee Park, who finished third. In some ways this is the easiest way to win a card, as you have an entire season to prove yourself; but because only five golfers actually earn cards this way, one has to be pretty great and consistent to get onto the LPGA via the Futures Tour.

The third way, and the way most players use, is to qualify via an annual Qualifying tournament known as Q-School. The upside of doing it this way is that there are more tour cards available in this one week than at the Futures Tour all year, generally between 15 and 25 cards. And it only requires a commitment to play in that one tournament; if you can rise to the occasion, you're in. The downside is that everything is riding on your performance that one week. You could be the greatest golfer on the planet, but if you screw up that one week, you don't get membership on tour for the whole next year. The pressure these women go through during Q-School is enormous.

Even getting into Q-School can be somewhat of a chore. In fact, to qualify for the finals, a player has a few options. She can play one of the sectional qualifiers and finish in the top 30 there. Or, the top 15 players on the Futures Tour money list automatically qualify, provided they didn't already earn an exempt card by finishing in the top five. Lastly, players who do not maintain their exempt status on the LPGA during the regular season are allowed to return to Q-School finals to give it another chance.

This year, there were literally dozens of Korean and Korean American golfers who tried to qualify for the LPGA. Those that made it to the finals had five rounds of intense golf ahead of them, and the odds were not good. Only fifteen exempt cards, and 35 conditional cards, were available this year. Players who earn conditional cards in Q-School tend to have a hard time making it into most tournament fields, unless they finish very close to the top of the non-exempt list. Even those players will probably only be able to play about a dozen events in 2007. Exempt players, meanwhile, can play in pretty much any tournament they want, other than those events with special qualification criteria. The difference between exempt status and conditional is enormous, and sometimes which kind of card one earns can come down to a single stroke over five rounds of golf.

Players who made it to this event came through all sorts of different paths. There were the KLPGA players, for instance. These are golfers who have played on Korea's pro tour, and now want to try their luck in America. The top prospect from that tour this year was Hyun Hee Moon (pictured), who finished fourth on the KLPGA money list in 2006. Moon also won the first of two Q-School sectionals, so she clearly was ready for the challenge ahead of her. Other KLPGA players with a decent chance to succeed were Eun Hee Ji and Hae Jung Kim, both top fifteen players on that tour.

Then there are the young guns, who have competed in the amateur ranks but are now ready to turn pro. A surprising number of these girls this year are eighteen years old, probably more than at any other Q-School in history (eighteen is the minimum age one must be to play Q-School). But though they are young, they are full of talent. One mega talented teen in this year's field was In-Kyung Kim. Kim won the 2005 US Girl's Junior championship, beating In-Bee Park in the process. She finished third at this year's first sectional, then a few weeks before the finals, won the Futures Tour Q School tournament. Another impressive 18 year old phenom is Ji Young Oh, who played in six amateur events in 2006 and won all six. That's right, she won all of them. And by an average score of 7.5 strokes. Oh has been training at the Leadbetter Academy. Then there's Na On Min, a former Korean National team member.

Still other players in the field came through the Futures Tour in 2006. They weren't able to finish in the top five, but the experience playing on that mini-tour would hopefully come in handy during the tough days ahead. The top prospect from that group was Angela Park, yet another 18 year old, but this one a pro who had played the entire season on the Futures Tour. Park just barely missed earning her card by finishing in the top five on the Futures Tour, but was ready to rectify that situation. Even before she became a pro earlier this year, she had been impressive, especially when she scored a top twenty as an amateur at the year's first Major, the Kraft Nabisco. Other impressive Futures Tour prospects included Jimin Jeong, who had won twice on tour in 2006; Hye Jung Choi, who had won once; Ha Na Chae; and 19 year old Jin Young Pak. And another to keep an eye on was Jeanne Cho, who had made the most noise not as a member of that tour, but as the runner up in the Golf Channel's reality show called Big Break V.

Some of the players in the field cut their teeth in college and were now ready to become professional. Several of the Korean American prospects in the field came to be there in this way. Irene Cho won the Honda award for top college golfer in the country this year, and the native of Southern California sure looked to be a top bet to gain her card. Jane Park was a golfer for UCLA who had excelled as an amateur outside of the college ranks, winning the 2004 US Women's Amateur and finishing second in 2003. She also had a tenth place finish to her credit at the recent US Women's Open.

The Korean golfers were not only becoming more numerous, their origins were becoming more varied as well. This year, there were several Korean Americans in the field at Q-School; considering that there were only two Korean Americans on tour in 2006, that was an interesting development in itself. In addition, there were Koreans who were born in France (Jeanne Cho), Brazil (Angela Park) and Ecuador (Kitty Hwang). Any of those three making the tour would mark the first time a Korean from those countries had played on the LPGA.

Lastly, a number of the Korean golfers in the field were there to try to regain their playing privileges on tour. Some had failed to maintain their cards due to poor play, or not being able to get into enough fields to make the money they needed to finish in the top 90 on the money list. Hana Kim and Aram Cho were two examples. Then there was Minny Yeo (pictured), who had lost her privileges several years ago, but was making a bid to get them back in 2006. All in all, 24 Koreans were putting themselves to the test this week.