Lauren Walsh and Olivia Mehaffey have secured Category 16 Status at LET Lalla Aicha Q-School after finishing tied for 24th and tied for 27th respectively in Marrakech.
It’s a little bittersweet for the Irish duo, however, with the top-20 finishers securing Category 12 and are virtually guaranteed to get into all the big events.
Walsh began the day at -4 in a tie for 30th and went bogey-free as she birdied two of the opening nine and another two on the back to reach the clubhouse at -8. Agonisingly, she’d fall two strokes shy of a top-20 place but, having come through pre-qualifying the previous week, it was an excellent effort and she’ll have the opportunity to improve her ranking prior to a mid-season reshuffle.
“There are a lot of positives to take away,” said Walsh. “Obviously, I’m a little disappointed to come up too short of that top 20.
“Coming into the week I was really hoping to finish in the top 20 to secure full time status for next year. But being just outside right now in category 16, but again, quite high up in category 16, I guess what I’ve heard from a lot of players and a lot of the LET staff today, I should get a good number of starts, for next year and hopefully I can capitalize on some of them early and maybe be able to put myself up in a reshuffle.
“But yeah, I’ll have a good few starts to get me started, and that was the goal coming into the week. Obviously just shy of the bigger goal of the top 20 but overall pretty good.”
Playing across two courses on days one-four, the 65 who survived the 72-hole cut assembled at Al Maaden Course for the fifth and final round.
“I guess two good days around the more scorable golf course and just one bad day,” Walsh said, “but I guess in the stretch of 90 holes you’re going to have patches like that and, you know, I kind of had to stick with it and stay patient and I think I did that pretty well.
“I had to come through the pre qualifier last week too, so I played something like 12 rounds in 13 days, so, you know, you’re gonna go through patches where it’s not all fully there.”
Mehaffey, having struggled for consistency over the opening three rounds, got in her groove on day four to climb from well outside the cutline and give herself an outside chance of squeezing into the top 20, though a top-50 finish would see her gain Category 16 status as well.
And she found more of the same form on the closing day. Starting on the 10th, she birdied two of her opening eight holes before disaster struck at the 18th where she carded a double-bogey-seven.
Now in danger of missing out of the top 50, she showed incredible resolve and reeled off five birdies on the front nine to claw her way up to -7 overall and into a tie for 27th which means, like Walsh, she’ll be among the top-ranked players in Category 16 when the 2024 season gets underway with the Magical Kenya Ladies Open in early February.
Showcasing the global nature of the LET, 15 different nationalities are represented among the 22 players (there was a three-way tie for 20th) who have gained Category 12 status, and 20-year-old Russian Nataliya Gusev, who hit the front after day two, was the leading qualifier as she ran out a four-stroke winner over South African Carla Gorlei.
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