The Epson Tour, Road to the LPGA, begins the IOA Championship with first-round play on Friday, March 24 at 7:30 a.m. Play will begin from the first and tenth tees at Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon.

The field of 132 aspiring LPGA Tour golfers from the United States and 27 countries around the globe will compete for a tournament purse of $100,000. The winner will earn $15,000 and move towards the top of the early season Volvik Race for the Card money list. The top 10 earners on the final money list will earn LPGA membership for the 2018 season.

There are 127 professionals and five amateurs in the field.

The next three events are co-sanctioned with The LPGA of Taiwan (TLPGA). There are 12 players in the field this week from the TLPGA including 15-year-old Tzu-Yi Chang, the youngest in the field.

The first-round begins on Friday, March 24 at 7:20 a.m. from the first and tenth tees. There will be a cut made to the low 60 and ties following Saturday’s second round. The final-round will begin at 7:30 a.m. The trophy ceremony will take place on the 18th green immediately following play. Tickets to the IOA Championship are free while parking is also free and available on site.

LISA FERRERO UNFAZED BY CANCER, NOW FIGHTING FOR LPGA RETURN

Lisa Ferrero (Lodi, Calif.), who tees in the IOA Championship at 7:20 a.m. on Friday, discovered a lump in her chest just prior to the Kingsmill Championship on the LPGA Tour in 2012.

Over the course of the next year and a half, Ferrero went to six different doctors and nobody could figure out what was wrong with the then 29-year-old.

Finally, one of the doctors decided to conduct a mammogram, eventhough she wasn’t in her thirties yet.

“They found something and after the biopsy they still didn’t know what it was,” explained Ferrero. Then, they did an MRI and originally they thought it was two and a half centimeters, which is pretty big.”

What the MRI didn’t show was that there were three other tumors that merged with the one she could feel and it was nine centimeters by the time they found it.

“I was diagnosed with ductal carcinoma, but it never spread outside my lymph nodes,” explained Ferrero. “Since mine was so big, they took two of my lymph nodes and they tested negative, which was good.”

Ferrero said doctors at the University of California San Francisco informed her that they had never seen a tumor so big in a person so young.

In January of 2014, once they had all the test results back, she had a mastectomy performed and at that point she knew for certain that the cancer did not spread.

Ferrero had her third and likely last surgery in December of 2016. It was mostly a reconstructive surgery to deal with the scar tissue.

“When I played the first event of the year (Florida’s Natural Charity Classic), I had hardly played 18 holes worth of golf,” explained Ferrero. “It was my first competition since surgery so I could have shot 65 or 85, I had no idea.”

Ferrero, who played a full season on the LPGA Tour in 2012 and 2013 while visiting doctors and trying to find out what was wrong, was forced to sit out the entire 2014 season.

“Initially, I was upset and had the thought that many have of ‘am I going to die?’, but there is nothing you can do so I just joked around with my doctors and I wound up talking a lot of golf with my doctors.”

“Honestly, it has been hard on the golf because I was swinging really well before this happened and it has been kind of a struggle since,” Ferrero continued. “When I seem to get it back, I feel like I always have another surgery. The cancer and surgeries don’t affect my swing, it’s just the time off.”

Ferrero, who now goes in every six months for screenings, is healthy and trying to return to the LPGA. She is also planning her future as a college golf coach.

“I’m out here because I feel like I can make the top ten,” said Ferrero. “I want to play a full season and see where I stack up. If I can still play great, if not then it is time to move on. I really want to be a college coach.”

Ferrero had a few interviews for coaching jobs and said she has always been better at helping other people.

“I like helping people reach their goals and coaching is always something I wanted to do,” said Ferrero. “I’ll go out with some of the girls on the UT (Texas) golf team when I’m at home. My sister played at Washington and I was pretty close with their team too. I feel like with my playing experience, I could really offer something more to the college kids.”

But that may be on hold if she can put together a top 10 season. No longer fighting for her life, she’s now fighting again to continue her golf career.

2015 GRAD FINDING HER WAY ON THE LPGA

Casey Grice, who finished ninth on the Volvik Race for the Card money list in 2015, is back on the Epson Tour for the first time since. It likely won’t be a long stint as she retained LPGA Tour status by finishing 116th on the money list last year.

Grice has already made two starts on the LPGA this year and made the cut at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA Classic. She expects to play this week and the Gateway Classic at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa, before focusing on the LPGA the rest of the season.

“Last year was up and down on the LPGA, I was a rookie so it was like being a freshman in high school again,” explained Grice, whose best finish last year was a T33 at the Volunteers of America Texas Shootout. “It was fun, I met a lot of great people and I retained status and will get to play most of the year out there.”

For Grice, who had never travelled out of the country, getting to go to the Bahamas and Australia were two of the moments she’ll never forget from her rookie year. She also mentioned qualifying for the KPMG
Women’s PGA Championship and making the cut as a highlight. She even got the opportunity to play a practice round with Solheim Cup captain Juli Inkster at the Kia Classic last year.

This year, Grice has already noticied a difference in her comfort level on the LPGA.

“I was a deer in the head lights at my first two or three events last year and when I went back to the Bahamas this year, I knew where everything was and I knew what was going on,” said Grice. “There is
definitely some comfort and being able to be a step ahead in my second year.”

The biggest thing for Grice now is figuring out how to go from a fringe LPGA player to a full schedule player.

“I have plenty of length to compete out there, but they hit their wedges close and they make putts,” said Grice. “Those have been the two places that I have really tried to focus and I have seen improvement this offseason. Proximity to the hole is just so important and I need to keep getting closer. I’m doing a lot of speed drills because I know I just need to make more putts.”

Grice finished T37 at Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon in 2015.

Ferrero Unfazed by Cancer, 2015 Grad Finding Her Way on the LPGA and more from Beaumont

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