With LCAP, college seniors will have another pathway to pro status, just not LPGA yet

NBC Sports

a day ago

The LPGA is expanding the pathway to the Epson Tour for top college players.
The tour announced Wednesday the LPGA Collegiate Advancement Pathway, or LCAP, a program that beginning next summer will award 10 graduating seniors with some form of Epson Tour status and Q-School exemptions.
LCAP resembles the regular PGA Tour University program, which doles out varying statuses under the PGA Tour umbrella to 25 graduates. It also comes on the heels of last year's announcement of the LPGA Elite Amateur Pathway, which was designed to award LPGA cards to top amateurs who achieve certain benchmarks, like the PGA Tour U's Accelerated program. Florida State senior Lottie Woad is currently at 18 of the required 20 points to become LEAP's first alumnus.
As for LCAP, the LPGA's SVP of tour operations, Tommy Tangtiphaiboontana, told GolfChannel.com that the tour is still finalizing its ranking system, which will include both college and non-college events recognized by the World Amateur Golf Ranking and feature a two-year cycle concluding with the NCAA Championship of a player's senior year. Without knowing the exact formula, it's tough to project who will debut atop the first points list later this year, though rising seniors Megha Ganne (Stanford), Catherine Park (USC) and Kary Hollenbaugh (Ohio State) should all rank fairly high.
The top finisher in LCAP each season will receive full Epson Tour status (Category D) for the remainder of that season and the following season, plus an exemption to the LPGA's final qualifying stage, formerly known as Q-Series.
Nos. 2-5 will receive the same Epson perks, though will be exempt into LPGA qualifying, which is now the second stage of the tour's Q-School.
Nos. 6-10 will earn a season and a half of Category L status on Epson and an exemption into LPGA qualifying. According to Tangtiphaiboontana, Nos. 6-10 are prioritized below the reshuffle category, though those players should get into all events that pull from the priority list that initial summer.
In creating the program, Tangtiphaiboontana said the looked at recent data that showed that while 44% of the top 80 players on the LPGA the past four years played college golf, 82% of the top 80 players on Epson during that time frame were college products. Most of those players stayed four years, too.
Most recently, LSU's Ingrid Lindblad, who won 15 times as a Tiger and capped her career by winning the 2024 Annika Award, made nine starts on Epson last summer, winning once and posting four other top-10s to finish sixth in points and earn one of 15 LPGA cards, up from the 10 that were awarded between 2008 and 2023. Lindblad has since won on the LPGA as a rookie.
'We view Epson Tour as the main pathway to the LPGA,' Tangtiphaiboontana said. 'It's gotten stronger and stronger each year due to the good work on the Epson side of increasing purses. We've seen that when players play on Epson, they see sustained success on the LPGA. … This was wanting to create a program for those players who have the body of work to have assurances that when they come on tour, they have a place to play without having to go through Q-School.
'Are players still going to make a decision on their own to leave school early? Absolutely. But having this in place, it gives players an extra option to return to school, develop another year, I can have a guaranteed place to play for a year and a half on the Epson Tour when I finish school.'
When PGA Tour U was first rolled out for the 2020-21 season, there were only five Korn Ferry Tour cards handed out. Those benefits have since increased exponentially with the No. 1 player now earning PGA Tour status for a season and a half.
Tangtiphaiboontana knows college players and coaches will still be clamoring for at least one LPGA card up for grabs through LCAP, and he wouldn't rule that out down the road, though any such adjustments would need buy-in from LPGA membership, which gave the green light to LEAP last year.
'This is just a foundation for building a pathway, and we want to see how this grows and look at the classes that come out,' he said. 'If it warrants us giving out an LPGA card, we will absolutely do that.'