15 LPGA Cards, a $100K Winner’s Check and Everything You Need to Know About the Epson Tour Championship

For the 71 players teeing it up at this week's Epson Tour Championship, the road to the LPGA Tour is coming down to its final turns. As the official qualifying tour for the LPGA, the Epson Tour is where the future stars of the women's game spend a season collecting points and top finishes in hopes to earn themselves a spot on the biggest stage in women's golf.

With 15 LPGA cards on the line, this week represents the last major opportunity to move up the standings before the next step...a.k.a. the grind of Q-School and Final Qualifying, set to take place later this year.

But the stakes are bigger than just a tour card. This year's championship features a few new changes, including a 71-player, no-cut field (reduced from 80 players, with a cut made after 36 holes) competing for a record $300,000 purse, including a $100,000 check to the winner. And they'll return to the Players Course at Indian Wells Golf Resort which is fresh off a $13 million renovation.

The Q-School gauntlet is unlike anything else we see in this game. It's round after round of the most intense golf imaginable, so needless to say, those teeing it up in Indian Wells are putting the pedal to the metal in trying to secure a card. If a player doesn't end up in that top-15, she still has a shot at making the LPGA in 2027, but her status just may look different.

The LPGA Tour has a priority list that consists of varying categories, which come with different privileges. For instance and in the case of the championship this week, athletes who finish the season in the top 10 of the Race for the Card will be seeded into Category 9 on the 2027 LPGA Tour Priority List—the strongest status a player can earn through the Epson Tour season.

Players who finish 11th through 15th will also earn LPGA Tour cards for 2027, but with lower priority status. Those players will be placed in Category 16.

See how the LPGA priority list and categories were broken down for the 2026 season here.

Those who finish 16th through 35th won't earn an LPGA Tour card outright, but they will earn a direct spot into the final stage of LPGA Q-Series in November. That means they’ll skip the earlier stages of qualifying and have one more chance to play their way onto the LPGA Tour for 2027.

It's important to note that every player at Indian Wells has already secured full Category A status for the 2027 Epson Tour season, but her status isn't set in stone, a player will still want to perform her very best for the very best possible outcome. The higher she finishes in the final standings this week, the stronger her position within Category A and the better her priority for Epson Tour fields will be in 2027.

Nine players have already mathematically secured their LPGA Tour cards for 2027 in Mirabel Ting, Lauren Olivares, Kaleiya Romero, Annabelle Pancake-Webb, Carla Bernat Escuder, Liqi Zeng, Mariel Galdiano, Amari Avery, and Cholcheva Wongras.

But that doesn't mean their positions are locked in, again, a strong week in Indian Wells could still move players up the standings and into a stronger category—particularly those currently sitting 11th through 15th, who have already secured a card but could improve their priority status to category 9.

And if some of those names sound familiar, they should! Mirabel Ting played alongside Lottie Woad at Florida State, where she was the top-ranked collegiate player, whereas Woad, who is now a two-time winner on the LPGA, was the top-ranked amateur in the world. Ironically, Woad sat second behind Ting in the FSU lineup. So if that tells you anything...the young Malaysian star knows ball and will certainly be a force on the Tour.

Kaleiya Romero is the big sister to Kiara Romero, who clinched her LPGA card this summer. The two will be the next set of sisters to compete on the LPGA Tour together! The older Romero has missed only one cut during her rookie season on Epson, while also collecting a win and eight other top-10s.

Carla Bernat Escuder, who won the 2025 Augusta National Women's Amateur, has found her footing in her professional career, securing her position as a soon-to-be Epson Tour graduate. She earned her first professional win early in September, which helped her clinch her card.

And of this incoming class of rookies, there's one player that feels like she's been here before despite her still being so young into her career. Amari Avery has been a name and face that golf has been familiar with since her junior golf days, starring in a Netflix documentary about child golf prodigies called The Short Game.

Since then, the player people crowned the "Tigress" (thanks to a few very coincidental similarities to Tiger Woods like sharing a birthday!) has gone on to have a successful amateur and collegiate career where she played at the University of Southern California, before making the decision to turn pro.

Earlier this year, Avery won her first professional title and has since collected two more top-10 finishes, securing her spot inside the top-10 ahead of this week. And with this, she becomes just the ninth black woman in history to earn her LPGA card.

Follow the live leaderboard action here, beginning around 11 a.m. ET.