The remaining Major of the year, the AIG Women’s Open, is only days away, and for many players, Final Qualifying represented their last chance to appear in the tournament at Walton Heath.
Hankley Common in England hosted 2023 Final Qualifying for the tournament, with 12 places up for grabs in the Major and 105 players in the field.
Chloe Williams, from Wales, booked her place after finishing top of the leaderboard thanks to a commanding five-under 67 that included five birdies and an eagle. Williams has one previous start in the AIG Women’s Open, when she missed the cut in 2021, and she will be confident of better fortunes this year.
Behind Williams on the leaderboard were two players sharing second. Emma Grechi, from France, produced a bogey free 68 that included three birdies and an eagle. She was joined American Gina Kim, who will make her first appearance in the AIG Women’s Open.
Two-time LET winner Kylie Henry is another who will take her place in the field at Walton Heath after carding a three under 69. Joining Henry in a T4 is Ecuadorian Daniele Darquea and Wei-ling Hsu from Chinese Taipei, who won the LPGA Tour’s Pure Silk Championship in 2021.
It wasn’t just professionals who earned a place in the field for the Major, either, as Irish amateur Anna Foster’s three-under 69, which included six birdies, was enough to book her a dream ticket to the tournament.
That left five remaining spots for the 13 players who finished on two-under, and needing a playoff to separate them.
The sudden-death format saw players set off in two groups to play holes five and eight. South Korean Mi Hyang Lee, who has achieved top-10 finishes six times in Majors, was the first to qualify after a 15-foot putt for birdie in the first playoff hole.
Australian Kelsey Bennett was another to progress from the playoff, along with Hayley Davis from England, who will hope to improve on her missed cut from 2022. World No.1 amateur Ingrid Lindblad also qualified for her fourth appearance at the tournament, joining Foster as the second amateur of the day to progress.
That left one more spot up for grabs, with Lottie Woad, Savannah De Bock, Wichanee Meechai, Emma Allen and Maddie Szeryk all in the running as the playoff entered the third extra hole in the fading light. Allen and Woad were the first to be eliminated after bogeys as the trio's hopes remained intact.
Incredibly, all three players birdied the fourth extra hole, and so on they went to the fifth. After, Meechai was eliminated following a bogey, it left Szeryk and De Bock needing to come back on Tuesday to finish the mammoth playoff as it was deemed too dark to carry on.
Returning to the eighth on Tuesday morning, each player birdied the par 5, and it was amateur De Bock who finally made the breakthrough on the fifth with par after Szeryk failed to make her longer putt.
While the dozen players who have qualified can now prepare for one of the biggest tournaments of the year, for others there was disappointment.
Londoner Annabel Dimmock, who won the 2019 Jabra Ladies Open on the LET, missed out by one shot, while five-time Dutch LET winner Anne van Dam also failed to qualify.
Yealimi Noh, who played for Team USA in the 2021 Solheim Cup, finished two short of reaching the playoff, and Thai Pornanong Phatlum, who finished runner-up to Georgia Hall in 2018, also missed out.
There was also disappointment for four-time Rose Ladies Series winner Gabs Cowley of England, who fell four short of the playoff, while LPGA Tour pro, American Emma Talley, also missed out, along with German Leonie Harm, who finished T7 in the 2021 AIG Women’s Open.
