Former CU golfers Jenny Coleman, Esther Lee earn 2020 LPGA Tour cards by placing in top 10 on final Symetra money list
By Gary Baines – 10/06/2019
It’s been a pretty heady last few years for former University of Colorado women’s golfers.
In December 2016, Jenny Coleman earned conditional status on the LPGA Tour with her performance in Q-school.
Last fall, after qualifying for the previous two U.S. Women’s Opens, Robyn Choi landed a spot on the LPGA circuit with her showing in the LPGA Q-Series.
And on Sunday, Esther Lee and Coleman punched their tickets to the LPGA Tour for 2020 by finishing among the top 10 money winners on the 2019 Symetra Tour. Coleman placed third for the year with $104,840, and Lee checked in ninth with $87,360.
“It’s awesome and really great to be headed back out there,” Coleman said on SymetraTour.com. “I definitely earned it this year and deserve it. This just gives me more confidence to give it a go again and I know I’ll do better this time around. I’m very excited.”
As for Lee, she said, ““I’m really excited. It’s been a long season of hard work, but it feels great. It’s going to be new challenges, new experiences. I have to prepare as best as I can this offseason, make a couple adjustments in my game and I’ll be ready to go.”
(All 10 of Sunday’s LPGA card earners are pictured above in a Symetra Tour photo, with Coleman third from left and Lee second from right.)
Neither Coleman nor Lee won a Symetra Tour title this year, but they did pretty much everything but that. That includes strong showings on Sunday at the Symetra Tour Championship in Daytona Beach, Fla., where Coleman ended up tied for second and Lee shared eighth place.
With rounds of 68-68-69-67, Coleman finished at 16-under-par 272, one stroke behind champion Laura Wearn. Lee went 69-69-70-69 for a 277 total.
In 2019, Coleman recorded nine top-10 showings, with three runner-ups, three thirds and a fifth. Lee had 10 top-10s, with one second place, four thirds and a fourth.
In her previous season as an LPGA Tour player, Coleman made one cut in 10 events and finished 171st on the 2017 LPGA money list with $4,640.
Coleman wrapped up her CU career in 2014, while Lee struck her final shot as a Buff in 2017. Their days at CU never overlapped.
Elsewhere in tour golf on Sunday, former Fort Collins resident and Air Force Academy golfer Tom Whitney tied for seventh on Sunday in PGA Tour Latinoamerica’s Banco del Pacifico Open in Ecuador. Whitney went 69-70-69-69 for an 11-under-par 277 total, which put him 11 strokes behind champion Augusto Nunez.
With five top-10 Latinoamerica finishes in 2019, Whitney stands second on this season’s money list.