Following the fourth tournament of the 2019 Epson Tour season the Volvik Race for the Card welcomes a fresh top-10, including a new No. 1 in most recent Epson Tour champion Leona Maguire (County Cavan, Ireland), up six spots.
Dropping back one position is Julieta Granada (Asuncion, Paraguay) with $33,737 across three starts. Meanwhile, Jillian Hollis (Rocky River, Ohio) and Lauren Coughlin (Charlottesville, Virginia) slot right behind at $28,436 and $23,000, respectively, to make it four players with $20,000 or more so far this year.
“I knew I was close for a while, had been playing some really good golf and it was kind of frustrating that I maybe didn’t finish quite as high as I would’ve liked,” said Maguire, who has three straight top-five results. “This allows me to skip a few more events and not feel quite as bad about it. I’ll be back and forth between LET and here. It gives me a little more breathing room and it’s a nice head start going into the rest of the season where I’ll have had a look at the golf courses.”
Demi Runas (Torrance, California) checks in at No. 5 and Kelly Tan (Batu Pahat, Malaysia) leads the way for the second half of the top-10. She is closely followed by Kyung Kim (Chandler, Arizona) having earned $16,265 through four events, as only $3,570 separates the trio.
“Being in this position early in the year is a good showcase of what I’m capable of, so when those bumps in the road happen I can draw on the good,” Runas said after a tied for 38th finish in Northern California. “We obviously have a long way to go with 20 more events, but the excitement is starting to build with our next stop in El Dorado before a long stretch starts in early May.”
Rounding out the group is Karen Chung (Livingston, New Jersey) at No. 8, then Pajaree Anannarukarn (Bangkok, Thailand) who jumped 85 places with a solo second finish in the Windsor Golf Classic and Jean Reynolds (Newnan, Georgia).
At the end of the season, the top-10 players in the Volvik Race for the Card standings will graduate onto the LPGA Tour for the 2020 season.