LPGA to award tour cards to top Ladies European Tour players starting in 2025

The alliance between the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour is set to grow stronger in 2024. Multiple sources tell Golf Digest that principals on both sides of the Atlantic have agreed to a plan where the top four players off next year’s LET Race to Costa Del Sol season-long points list will be awarded LPGA cards for the 2025 season. Additionally, the top 10 players will be exempt into this year’s Q-Series, the LPGA’s final stage of qualifying school. Each move also may be the first stages of an even more formal partnership moving forward.

The timing of a formal announcement about the card exchange is unknown. According to multiple sources, the two tours initially were looking at letting the LET players join the LPGA in the 2024 season based on 2023 results. At a mandatory player meeting ahead of last month’s Kroger Queen City Championship, LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan alongside LPGA player president Vicki Goetze-Ackerman, Chief Legal and IT Officer Liz Moore, and Chief Tour Business and Operations Officer Ricki Lasky, shared with LPGA members details about the plan. According to multiple attendees of the meeting, that Sept. 5 discussion was met with numerous questions as players voiced concern about adding cards for next year so close to the end of the 2023 season, when at the time there were only three full-field events left on the schedule.

The LPGA, in response to the players’ concerns, reversed course on handing the LET cards out in 2024. Both Marcoux Samaan and LET Chair Marta Figueras-Dotti emailed their player bodies on Sept. 9 explaining that cards would no longer be available for 2024.

“It was clear that the primary and immediate area of concern was the suggested introduction of LPGA Tour cards for the 2024 season,” Marcoux Samaan stated in an email to players obtained by Golf Digest. “We fully understand and appreciate the concerns raised on this point, and we recognize the importance of providing a quick response on this term. Based on your input and a discussion at the LPGA Board meeting [Sept. 5], we revisited this topic with LET leadership and have collectively agreed to amend the proposal so that LPGA Tour cards will be effective in 2025, rather than 2024.”

The four LET players would be part of a current status category, but receive unique treatment in Category 9 on the LPGA's priority list, which is the same level as players earning cards by finishing in the top 10 on the Epson Tour's money list. The category is traditionally high enough where players can compete in all full-field events on the LPGA. By comparison, that category provides higher status than those who finished 81-100 on the previous year's CME points list.

However, there is a difference between Epson and LET players in how they receive that status. While only the top 10 on the Epson money list get cards for the next year, regardless of whether they might have LPGA status through another category, players who qualify for status through the LET's points list would “roll down” to players lower on the list if somebody above them already is an LPGA member.

For instance, Celine Boutier leads the LET's Order of Merit thanks to her wins at the Amundi Evian Championship and the Freed Group Women's Scottish Open. Because Boutier already has full (and better) status than the category would provide her, Boutier's card rolls down instead to Diksha Dagar. The fourth card would go to Trichat Cheenglab, who is currently in fifth place. The “rolling down” would not exceed 10th place on the points list, however, and players with LPGA status that is worse than a LET points-list card are eligible to earn them.

Similarly, the LPGA will start with 10 players receiving exemptions into Q-Series from the LET points list this year and bump that to the top 15 and ties in 2024. The LPGA first gave exemptions to LET players for Q-Series in 2021, when it granted them to those who finished in the top five and ties on the points list. That expanded in 2022 to exemptions for the top 10 and ties, which will remain the same this year.

The final event of the LET schedule, the Andalucia Costa Del Sol Open de España, concludes Nov. 26. That gives players just two days to get to the U.S. with Q-Series practice rounds at Magnolia Grove G.C. in Mobile, Ala., beginning Nov. 28 and the six-round event beginning Nov. 30.

Asked for comment about the card exchange, an LPGA official released the following statement:

“When the LPGA partnered with the LET and formed the joint venture in 2019, the goal was to strengthen women's golf globally. The partnership has been very successful. As was reported earlier this year, we've been evaluating what the next iteration of our relationship looks like with the goal of continuing to enhance opportunities for members on all tours and strengthening the women’s game. These opportunities include providing additional pathways from the LET to the LPGA Tour. Throughout, we’ve spoken with members from both the LET and LPGA about the partnership and potential opportunities in full player meetings, in small group meetings and individually. We’ll continue to engage our members as we evaluate and determine the specific next steps in our relationship with the LET."

Indeed, the arrangement between the two tours is the latest development in the expanding relationship between the LPGA and LET since the two groups formed a joint venture in 2019 when Mike Whan was the LPGA's commissioner. The tours reached a multi-year agreement, where the two would run the LET 50-50. Since becoming commissioner in 2021, Marcoux Samaan has discussed multiple times possibly evolving the relationship from a joint venture to a merger, including at last year's CME Tour Championship and at the first player meeting this year in March.

During Marcoux Samaan’s presentation to LPGA players last month, more details were discussed about what a merger might entail including what the governance of the two tours might look like, conflicting-event releases between the two tours and other financial considerations. It’s unclear, however, if any definitive measures have been worked out and where discussions stand within each membership.