3 Koreans in position to earn LPGA membership for 2026

Korean golfer Lee Dong-eun / Courtesy of KLPGA

Three Korean players are poised for their LPGA Tour cards for the 2026 season with one more round to play at the weather-interrupted qualifying tournament.

Korea LPGA (KLPGA) Tour star Lee Dong-eun is the top Korean at Magnolia Grove in Mobile, Alabama, where she is alone in fourth place at nine-under at the LPGA Q-Series with the final round suspended due to darkness at 4:15 p.m. Monday (local time).

Lee was leading the tournament at the conclusion of the third round earlier in the day at 10-under 204, but slipped from the top after making two bogeys and a birdie over her first seven holes of the fourth round before play was suspended.

The top 25 players and ties at the end will earn their LPGA cards for 2026. With inclement weather conditions having caused disruption at the start of the tournament and again in the third round, the LPGA has decided to shorten the Q-Series from 90 holes to 72 holes.

Lee won her maiden KLPGA title at a major, the Korea Women's Open Golf Championship, in June this year. The 21-year-old led the KLPGA Tour by averaging 261.1 yards off the tee in 2025.

Juniper Jang and Joo Soo-bin were the next-best Koreans, as they were tied for eighth place at seven-under. Jang, who previously went by her Korean first name Hyo-joon, had gone two-under through 10 holes in the fourth round, while Joo had been one under through seven holes Monday before the suspension.

Both played on the LPGA Tour this year after first joining the circuit in 2023. Jang, 22, missed nine cuts in 15 starts with no top-10s. The 21-year-old Joo played in 20 tournaments and also missed nine cuts without recording a top-10 finish.

No other Korean was inside the top 25 at the time of stoppage. The projected cutline was at four-under, with four players tied for 23rd with that score, including Hinako Shibuno of Japan, the 2019 AIG Women's British Open champion.

Another major champion from 2019, the U.S. Women's Open winner Lee Jeong-eun, was tied for 39th at one-under. The Korean had been tied for 19th through three rounds but dropped out of the top 25 after going three-over through 11 holes in the final round.