DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With one round remaining at the Epson Tour Championship, a few players are still sitting on the bubble, needing one final push to break into the Race for the Card top 10 and earn a coveted LPGA Tour card for the 2024 season. Australian Robyn Choi is one of those players, entering the week at 11th on the official money list and sitting just $274 behind Jenny Bae in the 10th position. Through three rounds at the Jones Course at LPGA International, Choi is currently in a tie for 24th at 10-under overall and projected to remain in the same spot she was at the beginning of the season-ending event – 11th, one ranking and a few hundred dollars away from her LPGA Tour dream.
While some players on the outside looking in might just go for broke and play as aggressively as possible on Sunday, Choi is taking a different approach. The 25-year-old broke into the Race for the Card top 10 for the first time in her Epson Tour career just last week – Choi joined the Tour in 2019 – and isn’t too stressed about trying to pull off a miracle performance on Sunday. Instead, she’ll stick to the game plan and let the chips fall where they may.
“When I was playing (this season), I was focusing one tournament at a time. I'm happy that I haven't missed a cut this year,” said Choi, who is making her 21st start of the 2023 season this week at LPGA International. “I got into the top 10 last week which was my first time playing on this tour, so that's a pretty big accomplishment. The opportunity to have a chance to finish in the top 10 for the season, get my card, that's big.“
“I don't think playing too differently will make it any better. I think I'll stick to my game. If there are shots that I have to pull off, then I'm going to have to do it, but going to try not putting myself in that situation. I'm going to just play it depending on what the situation is. I'm not going to try forcing myself to do anything crazy, be a superhero or anything like that.”
However, anything can happen during the final round of the Epson Tour Championship and Choi absolutely still has a chance at achieving her dream of playing full-time on the LPGA Tour. The Epson Tour veteran is projected to need to finish solo 65th or better, not factoring in ties, to have a chance at earning full-time LPGA Tour Membership for next season.
Choi was a 2019 LPGA Tour rookie after finishing T45 at 2018 LPGA Q-Series to earn LPGA Tour status for the 2019 season. She only made three cuts in her inaugural campaign and has competed almost exclusively on the Epson Tour since 2020, earning 16 career top-10 finishes in the last four seasons.
Getting back to the Tour and being able to play in a full schedule of events has been a longtime goal for the Aussie, and with that dream now well within reach, she will do everything she can to maintain her position or move up on the Epson Tour Championship leaderboard, working as hard as possible to move inside the Race for the Card top 10 and earn a card.
“It's something that we've all been trying to get from the beginning the year, and also the last few years. I had my card a few years ago, but that was through Q-School. I didn't have a lot of status,” Choi said. “It'll be different to have a full season on the LPGA, and I think that's just what we really wanted to do out here for the whole year.”
And even if she doesn’t earn a card tomorrow, Choi knows that she has an exemption into LPGA Q-Series to take away as a consolation prize, one that will see her entry fee paid for by Seiko Epson Corporation, an important thing for most players in spots 11 through 35 on the official money list.
“(The paid entry fee into LPGA Q-Series) helps a lot,” she said. “Q-School is a lot of money. Not just the entry fee. You're going to have to pay for accommodation, food, caddies, a lot of things on top of that. When Epson said they were going to help with the entry fee it was a sigh of relief. I don't really want to go to Q-School, but if I have to, it's going to help us a lot.”
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