Kristen Gillman's miracle final round earns her the final LPGA Tour card for 2024
To say that Kristen Gillman needed a Hail Mary to get back on the LPGA Tour is putting it mildly.
The former Lake Travis star has seen her confidence wane in recent years after a 2018 LPGA rookie season that saw her finish 43rd on the money list with nearly a half-million dollars in winnings. But at the Epson Tour Championship last week on the LPGA International Jones Course in Daytona Beach, Fla., she needed to jump from 13th to 10th on the money list to get full exemption for the 2024 LPGA season and as the holes ticked away on the final day, she needed to make something happen.
Gillman hit an aggressive 6-iron on the par-3 17th to 8 feet from the hole and made the birdie putt. On the par-5 18th, she hit a 4-hybrid from 196 yards to 5 feet and drained the eagle putt.
The birdie-eagle finish secured the 10th and final card for the 26-year-old Gillman, who shot 64 in the final round for an improbable leapfrog into full-time LPGA status.
“I feel like it hasn’t really sunk in,” Gillman told Golfweek. “I’ve been on the outside looking in all season.”
Readying herself for her LPGA return
A two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur champion (2014 and 2018), Gillman’s $12,177 payday gave her $95,701 in season earnings, which comes out to $1,700 ahead of Becca Huffer, who finished 11th.
Gillman insists she’s been hitting the ball well but has just lacked confidence in recent years.
More: The best golf course in Texas? It's Lajitas near Big Bend
“A lot of it is whatever you make it to be,” Gillman said of tour life. “You can make it seem a lot harder than it actually is. The more you’re out there, it’s easier to get in your head.”
About 18 months ago, she went back to work with swing coach Justin Poynter, and while she had her boyfriend, mini-tour player and Cibolo native Trevor Bailey, on her bag in Daytona, Gillman used a pushcart for most of the season, grinding it out on her own.
The Texan felt her confidence finally start to shift after a runner-up showing in August at the French Lick Resort Charity Classic. She’d go on to finish the season with six consecutive top-15 finishes. She placed in the top 4 in her last three starts.
“If anything I’m better just mentally,” said Gillman of her form heading back to the LPGA.
Texas company continues golf growth
Champions Retreat in Evans, Ga. — the host club for the first two rounds of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur each year — is being sold to Dallas-based Arcis Golf.
Terms of the deal, slated to close Friday, have not been released. The impending sale was confirmed independently by Golfweek, although an official statement has not been released to news organizations.
The private Champions Retreat near Augusta consists of three nine-hole courses designed by Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. The ANWA is played each April on Palmer’s The Island nine and Nicklaus’ The Bluffs nine before moving to Augusta National Golf Club for the final round the Saturday before the Masters begins. The club also features oversized and luxurious cabins with a top-notch food and beverage program. The club has opened its gates to guests during Masters weeks in recent years.
Arcis Golf, founded in 2013, owns or operates nearly 70 private, resort and daily-fee clubs around the United States. Its properties include three in the Austin market: River Place Country Club, Twin Creeks Country Club and Onion Creek Club, which was designed by Jimmy Demaret and Ben Crenshaw. Arcis Golf is supported by the private equity firm Arcis Equity Partners, LLC.
Birdies and bogeys
∙ The first 13-U National Car Rental PGA Jr. League Championship in Texas brought the trophy to the Lone Star state and that’s where it will remain for at least a year. Team Texas captured its first title in the event at PGA Frisco’s Fields Ranch course, as the locals topped Team Utah in the final. Among those on the winning roster were Austin’s Beckett McLaughlin, who took part in the National Drive, Chip and Putt competition at Augusta earlier this year, and Dallas-based phenom Lincoln Rubis, who had three holes-in-one during a 22-day stretch earlier this year and is working with Jordan Spieth’s childhood coach.
∙ Lexi Thompson heads to the PGA Tour fresh off a top-5 finish in Texas. While it looked like Thompson might make a run for her first LPGA title in four years at the Old American Golf Club, rounds of 71-70 over the weekend kept her too far away to add any real pressure to eventual winner Hyo Joo Kim. Thompson finished solo fifth, six strokes back, at the 2023 Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America but carries confidence into the Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, where she’ll be the seventh woman to ever compete in a PGA Tour event.
∙ Who says TV stars don’t get special treatment? The 27th Hannon Cup Matches will be held at Driftwood Golf and Ranch Club later this month. The Ryder Cup-style event pits pros against amateurs. This year’s event was originally slated to take place on Oct. 23-24 but was moved back one day so that former Texas star and current Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee can make it to town.
Tim Schmitt is the managing editor for Golfweek, golf coordinator for the USA Today Network and lives in Round Rock. Beth Ann Nichols contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Kristen Gillman's final-round 64 last week won her a LPGA Tour card
