From the 31 players who have won 2026 LPGA cards during final qualifying on Tuesday, 17 will be rookies next year. And of these 17, only four are American: Laney Frye, Camille Boyd, Emma McMyler and Erica Shepherd. (Only five Americans in total earned their card, with former LPGA winner Ryann O’Toole, 38, rounding out the group.)
that of Florida Gianna Clementethe 17-year-old who received an age exemption to compete, had to birdie her final hole to get into the cut line and instead made a double.
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Interestingly, all four American players who advanced to the Q Series in Mobile, Alabama, played collegiate golf. Frye (Kentucky), Boyd (Washington) and McMyler (Duke) achieved their dream at 23, while Shepherd (Duke) is the oldest of the quartet at 24.
In Shepherd, the LPGA will once again have a left-hander on tour. The Indiana native said in a social post for Bettinardi Golf that she didn’t become left-handed by choice, but that it was part of her father’s master plan.
“I have an older brother,” Shepherd explained, “and he wanted my brother and I to be able to share the same bucket of balls and face each other, so we wouldn’t hit each other. So I had to be left-handed.”
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It worked out well for Shepherd, who won the 2017 US Girls’ Junior before heading to Duke. Shepherd won her first professional title at the 2025 Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout on the Epson Tour, where she finished 25th in the Race for the Card season standings. (The top 15 earn LPGA status.)
On Tuesday, Shepherd birdied two of his final five holes to sit at 5 under for the tournament.
Kentucky’s Laney Frye, who unlocked a distance explosion several years ago with instructor/caddie Ted Scott (yes, that Ted Scott), reached her card with a T-7 performance after back-to-back rounds of 68. Frye finished 15th in this year’s Race for the Card standings, but came to the Q-Series hoping to improve her LPGA rookie status. She had six top 10 finishes on this tour in 19 starts.
“It was kind of like gambling with the house money,” Frye said. “I was able to play freely and not put too much pressure on myself because I didn’t have as much to lose, I guess.”
Ted Scott reacts on Instagram to Laney Frye’s finish in the top 10 during LPGA final qualifying.
San Antonio’s McMyler had the most memorable result, making four consecutive birdies on his final four holes to lock up his card. McMyler played college golf at Xavier and Duke, becoming the first to win Big East Golfer of the Year three times. She earned a master’s degree in management studies from Duke last year.
Boyd, a rookie on the Epson Tour this season, has twice won the Juli Inkster Invitational in Washington. The Yorba Linda, Calif., native started strong with back-to-back 68s to begin final qualifying, recording just one bogey in the first two rounds. She finished the event with a share of 10th and said her time in the rainy Pacific Northwest helped her handle what Mother Nature threw at her.
This article was originally published on Golfweek: Four American rookies earn LPGA cards at Q-School
