Yamashita Is Medalist in LPGA Q-Series Final Stage; Smith-Stroh Earns Status for 2025

Minnesota

Mobile, Ala. -- At 4 feet, 11 inches tall, Miyu Yamashita might have been the smallest player in the field at the Final Stage of the LPGA Q-Series, which ended Tuesday. But she was also the highest ranked player in the Rolex Rankings, at No. 14, and she lived up to it by winning the tournament.  In fact, she didn't just win it. She capped off the 90-hole event by shooting a 9-under-par 63 and a 64 in the last two rounds on the Crossings Course at the Robert Trent Jones Trail Magnolia Grove complex.  

That gave her a five-round aggregate of 27-under 331, and a six-shot margin of victory. Everyone in the field played two rounds at the Magnolia Grove's Falls Course (par 71) and three at Crossings (par 72).

Chisato Iwai finished second at 337.

For the effort, Yamashita received full status on the PGA Tour in 2025 -- and $15,000.

The 25-year-old from Osaka has won 13 times on the Japan LPGA Tour. She's hasn't been a member of the LPGA Tour until now, but she tied for 2nd at the 2024 U.S. KPMG Women's PGA Championship, finishing three strokes behind the winner, Amy Yang, Yamashita made $732,059 that week. So if she had been a member of the LPGA, she would have ended the year 57th on the money list, based on that result alone. 

The Final Stage of the Q-Series has undergone a few changes in recent years. It went from 144 holes to 108 in 2019, and this year, it was reduced again, to 90 holes. But at the same time, the number of LPGA Tour Cards available in the Final Stage was cut in half, from 50 to 25.

The score that was required to earn one of those cards was minus 6 -- 352. There was a three-way tie for 24th at that number. 

Anong those who made it was Kate Smith-Stroh, the former five-time Minnesota state high school champion from Detroit Lakes. Smith-Stroh, 25, who was an All-American at Nebraska and won the Big Ten individual title as a senior, just missed getting her LPGA Card last year. As a result, she spent the year on the Epson Tour (the LPGA's equivalent of the PGA Tour's Korn Ferry). She played in 19 events and earned $51,112, which put her at No. 35 on the Epson money list. (The top 10 on the money list graduated to the LPGA Tour for next year.)

Smith-Stroh started the Final Stage with a 69 at the Falls Course (par 71). She was in position to improve on that in the second round, at Crossings, but she bogeyed the par-5 16th, the par-3 17th and the par-4 18th and had to settle for a 71. In her five rounds, Smith-Stroh made only four birdies on the par 5s, and was 1 on the 5s for the week. That doesn't sound like a recipe for success, but she made 12 birdies on the par 4s, including five in her 4-under third-round 67 at Falls. She had seven birdies in all in that round, to more than offset three bogeys. 

In her last two rounds at Crossings (the final round started Monday but was interrupted by rain and was completed Tuesday), she went 72-71 and ended up with a 350 total, thereby earning her card with two shots to spare.  

"It's so hard to think it's just another tournament," she said after the third round. "We're playing for our dream of a lifetime, especially me, not ever having had any status. I know it's a big hump to get over, and I don't take it lightly, but it's also just a game, and we do it every day."

For those who don't succeed in these qualifying tournaments, LPGA or PGA, it can be a crushing disappointment. But things were put into perspective last week before the Final Stage started, when the news came out that Kim Kaufman had to withdraw after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Kaufman, 33, is from Clark, S.D. She was a six-time South Dakota state junior champion, a four-time state high school champion and went on to be an All-American at Texas Tech (she was ranked No. 1 in the country during the fall of her senior year, 2012-13). She joined the LPGA Tour in 2014, and had full status for the next five years, crossing the $1 million mark in earnings in 2016 (her career earnings are just over $1.5 million). But in 2018, she came down with mononuclleosis, and while she was recovering, she fell down a flight of stairs and injured her wrist. After all that, she ended 2018 at No. 123 on the money list and lost her status. She regained it by finishing 11th in the Q-Series that fall, but lost her status again in 2020. 

So she has played mostly on the Epson Tour since then. This year, she played in 20 events out there, making $79,147 and ending the season No. 16 on the money list. She made an additional $23,741 by qualifying for the U.S. Women's Open, making the cut and finishing in a tie for 58th.  


2024 LPGA Q-Series 

Final Qualifying Stage

At Robert Trent Jones Magnolia Gove 

Crossings Course (par 72) & Falls Course (par 71)

Mobile, Ala. 

The leaders all played their final rounds at the Crossings Course

Final results (the top 25 finishers earned full LPGA status for 2025)

1. Miyu Yamashita                    $15,000         66-71-67-63-64--331 (-27)

2. Chisato Iwai                          $12,166         67-69-68-62-71--337

3. Pauline Roussin-Bouchard     $9,072          68-68-68-64-71--339 

4. Manon De Roey                       $7,305         69-69-68-67-70--341

T19. Kate Smith-Stroh               $2,349          69-71-67-72-71--350

What it took: 352(3-way tie for 24th) 

WD -- Kim Kaufman