Tickets - $10 per day, $25 for a three-day pass

Florida’s Natural Charity Classic
Lake Wales Country Club
Lake Wales, Florida
Storylines

LAKE WALES, Fla., March 23, 2015 - The Epson Tour, Road to the LPGA, makes its 15th trip to Polk County for the 7th annual Florida’s Natural Charity Classic at Lake Wales Country Club from March 27-29. This is the third of 23 Epson Tour events in 2015, the most in the last 27 years.

The 144-player field will compete over 54 holes for a $125,000 total tournament purse. The winner will receive an $18,750 check and likely jump into the top spot on the current Volvik Race for the Card money list. The top 10 on the year-end Volvik Race for the Card money list earn LPGA Tour membership for the 2016 season.

First-round play begins on Friday, March 27 at 7:45 a.m. There will be a cut made to the top 70 and ties following second round play on Saturday.

The Tour has been off since Katie Kempter captured her first professional win in thrilling fashion at the Volvik Championship in Beaumont, California on March 1. Kempter birdied her final three holes to get into a playoff and then beat Lee Lopez on the second hole. The Epson Tour season started the week prior in Mesa, Arizona with the Gateway Classic at Longbow Golf Club. It was a historic win for 16-year-old sponsor exemption Hannah O’Sullivan, who become the youngest ever to win in the 35-year history of the Epson Tour.

There will have been 25 off days between the final round in California and the first round on Friday.

At the 2014 Florida’s Natural Charity Classic, Cindy Feng carded a 5-under 67 on the final day to win her first career event. Feng would go onto finish seventh on the Volvik Race for the Card money list and is now playing on the LPGA Tour. On Sunday, she finished in a tie for 24th at the JTBC Founders Cup in Phoenix.

Past winners of the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic include Melissa Eaton (2013), Megan McChrystal (2012), Tzu-Chi Lin (2011), Angela Oh (2010) and Jean Reynolds (2009).

LOCAL FLAVOR: This year’s event will have a distanct local feel as former Ridge Community High School star Erica Popson is playing on the Epson Tour this year. Popson was a four-time individual state qualifier in high school and was a two-time Polk County Player of the Year. Popson went onto star at the University of Tennessee where she earned medalist honors six times and posted 18 total top 10 finishes during her career.

Last year, she qualified for the LPGA Tour through Qualifying Tournament and played a full schedule on the LPGA Tour. She is hoping for a return through the Epson Tour. Popson missed the cut in the first event and finished T66 in the second event.

Current Lake Region High School junior Athena Yang is also in the field this week on a sponsor exemption. She played in the event last year and missed the cut by just two shots. Yang was the 2014 Florida 3A state champion. She became the first golfer from Polk County to win the state championship in 30 years.

In addition to Popson and Yang, Windermere native and former Florida Southern College (Lakeland) golfer Emily
Flanigan Motta is also in the field. Flanigan Motta finished fifth at the 2011 Division II national championship. She was a four-time Academic All-American.

There are a total of 17 natives of Florida in the field this week.

YOUTH IS SERVED WITH 7 TEENAGERS: This is one of the youngest fields the Epson Tour has ever had with seven teenagers set to compete. There are two 16-year-olds (Ruixin Liu, Mika Liu), two 17-year-olds (Brooke Henderson, Athena Yang), three 18-year-olds (Su Oh, Haruka Morita-WanyaoLu, Sherman Santiwiwatthanaphon) and a 19-year-old (Yu Liu).

There are also a pair of players that are 20 (Brogan McKinnon, Anaelle Carnet).

Henderson and Oh both have wins in professional events already under their belts. Henderson has won two Suncoast Ladies Tour events this year and Oh won the RACV Australian Ladies Masters in February.

STAGE 1 MEDALIST DEBUTS: Emily Tubert (Burbank, California) won medalist honors at the LPGA Qualifying Tournament in 2014 and immediately became a likely candidate to earn LPGA Tour status. Unfortunately, she didn’t make the cut at stage II and was forced to manage with “I” status on the Epson Tour. She didn’t get into the first two fields, but is in the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic.

Tubert was a star for four years at the University of Arkansas. Her list of accomplishments are long and impressive including: 3-time All-American, 4-time All-SEC First-Team, 2014 Dinah Shore Trophy, six collegiate victories and 21 top 5 finishes.

Sounds like another former Arkansas golfer Stacy Lewis, who is the current No. 3 player in the world. For comparison sake, Lewis won 12 times in college. Lewis and Tubert are one and two respectively in career scoring average, wins and par or better rounds at Arkansas.

Tubert earned her first professional win this month at the Cactus Tour’s event at Moon Valley in Phoenix.

Immediately after graduating from Arkansas in 2014, Tubert auditioned and was selected for Golf Channel’s reality series Big Break Myrtle Beach. She was the top female finisher on the split gender show.

ALL-AMERICAN GRACE NA DEBUTS: Grace Na (Alameda, California) was a four-time All-American (twice on the first team) at Pepperdine and a four-time West Coast Conference Player of the Year. She will make her Epson Tour debut at the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic. Na ended her career at Pepperdine with the lowest career scoring average (72.88) in school history.

An incredible 21 of her 37 career events resulted in a top 10 finish. She won medalist honors six times. Na advanced to the quaterfinals of the 2014 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship.

She advanced through LPGA Qualifying Tournament Stage I in 2014, but did not make it out of stage two.

TWO LPGA TOUR WINNERS IN FIELD: There are a pair of LPGA Tour winners in the field this week in Lake Wales. Silvia Cavalleri won the 2007 Corona Championship while Birdie Kim holed out from the bunker on the 72nd hole to win the 2005 U.S. Women’s Open.

Mindy Kim has seven career top 10 finishes on the LPGA Tour. She will play her third Epson Tour event of the season. Kim leads the Epson Tour thus far with 24 birdies made.

FIRST ANNIKA ACADEMY SESSION: The ANNIKA Academy, founded by 72-time LPGA Tour winner Annika Sorenstam, is the Official Elite Training Academy of the Epson Tour. This is the second year that the ANNIKA Academy has worked with the Epson Tour to help them develop on and off the course.

This week in Lake Wales, ANNIKA Academy fitness and nutrition expert Kai Fusser will deliver the first of five professional development sessions for Epson Tour players on Tuesday from 4:00-5:00 p.m. Fusser, who worked with Sorenstam during her playing days, will speak to the players on best nutrition practices to prepare and excel in golf.

At the end of the 2015 season, the ANNIKA Academy will select one Epson Tour member to receive the “ANNIKA Academy Elite Athlete Award.” The award will be given to the player who, through her performance in Epson Tour events and her participation in the ANNIKA Academy development sessions, best demonstrates the same holistic “winning approach” philosophy, which Sorenstam applied to her game during competition. The player will receive a $5,000 cash prize.

The ANNIKA Academy also receives a sponsor exemption spot into the field. Riuxin “Rachel” Liu is an ANNIKA Academy elite athlete and will play in the event. Liu has played in one Epson Tour event each of the last two years. She finished in a tie for 48th in 2013 and missed the cut last year.

The 16-year-old from China has already won on the professional level. She won a 2014 Suncoast Ladies Tour event. She finished in a tie for fourth at the ANNIKA Invitational China last year.

VISIT TO SPOOK HILL ELEMENTARY: Epson Tour professionals will visit Spook Hill Elementary on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. The visit is in conjunction with the “Epson Tour Pin Pal” program. Professional Jean Chua has been communicating with fourth and fifth graders at the school. She will be one of the golfers making an appearance.

BY THE NUMBERS

4 - Number of players that finished in the top 10 in each of the first two events (Stephanie Kono, Maude-Aimee Leblanc, Lee Lopez and Brianna Do).

5 - Number of events in the state of Florida this year (Lake Wales, Fort Myers, Sarasota, Longwood and Daytona Beach).

21 - Number of players with LPGA Tour status in the field this week.

23 - Number of different countries represented at the Florida’s Natural Charity Classic.

35 - Number of years the Epson Tour has been around.

57 - Number of combined top 10 finishes for the players currently in the top 10 on the Volvik Race for the Card money list. It is a veteran group so far with no rookies.

Top Storylines for the Florida's Natural Charity Classic at Lake Wales Country Club

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