A Year In The Life of an LPGA Rookie

University of Washington women's golf team competes in the Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational

The new-look LPGA Tour is younger, tougher and better than ever — and these two Husky undergrads want their piece of the pie

by Bob Sherwin & Brian Beaky

As the day dawned on Dec. 15, 2014, the University of Washington women’s golf team was ranked No. 1 in the country, with the nation’s top-ranked collegiate player, and one of the most promising freshmen in the nation.

By the time the sun set, only the No. 1 ranking remained.

On that day, senior Soo-Bin Kim and freshman Jing Yan both declared their intention to forgo their remaining eligibility at Washington and immediately join the LPGA Tour. It was a decision forced as much by LPGA rules as by the desires of each player to leave — and the ramifications, for both the players themselves, and the program they left behind, have been significant. Washington held onto its No. 1 ranking for much of the spring and reached the quarterfinal round at the NCAA Championships, losing 3-2 in match play to USC. It’s easy to imagine a different outcome with two LPGA Tour-caliber players in the lineup. Stanford, whom the Huskies had beaten handily earlier in the season, went on to defeat Baylor for the national title.

Kim and Yan, meanwhile, were thrown to the wolves on the LPGA Tour, forced to battle the world’s best golfers each week on a Tour where the expenses (airfare, food, hotel, equipment, coaching, etc.) and effort are identical to the men’s, but the purses a mere fraction. In 2016, PGA TOUR players will compete in 47 events for $325.2 million, with an average purse of $6.9 million per event. The women? Thirty-four events, for a total of $63.1 million, and an average purse of just $1.9 million — and that’s actually an increase of 6.8 percent over the total LPGA purse in 2015. World No. 1 Lydia Ko won five tournaments, including a major, in 2015 — and made less money than 26 men on the PGA TOUR, eight of whom failed to win even a single event.

That Kim and Yan volunteered to leave behind athletic scholarships and a No. 1-ranked program to pursue their dreams in a field where working just as hard as your male counterparts is worth less than 20 percent of the salary, and being the 100th-best person in the world at your job just barely covers your expenses … well, let’s just say it takes a lot of guts, and a strong belief in yourself and your abilities.


SooBin Kim
SooBin Kim

The decision to turn pro wasn’t an entirely surprising one in either case — Kim was always destined for the LPGA, either at the end of her four-year career, or sooner, while Yan had won multiple elite amateur championships as a junior golfer, and even made the cut in two professional events.

Kim, 22, immigrated to British Columbia from South Korea as a young girl. Immediately upon arriving at UW, it was clear Kim was special — she finished second in her first collegiate tournament, and her five top-10s were, at the time, the seventh-most in a season for any Husky women’s golfer. By the spring of her sophomore year, she was America’s top-ranked collegiate golfer; by that fateful December day in the middle of her senior year, she had set UW career records for wins and scoring average, and was a two-time WCGA All-American.

Yan, meanwhile, came to UW from Shanghai, China, having won the 2013 Girls British Open Amateur Championship and the Ladies British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship, and having made two LPGA cuts as an amateur player. In her two appearances with the Huskies, she had already earned her first win.

During the three-month winter break in the collegiate season, however, both players opted to participate in the LPGA’s Q School in Daytona Beach, Fla. Kim tied for 11th, earning full status for 2015 — if she wanted it — while Yan placed 34th, good enough for conditional status.

The timing of the LPGA’s Q School poses what many from the college perspective believe is an unfair choice for the women who qualify. All of them must decide — at that moment — between potential college success or professional riches. There’s no waiting, debating or pondering. It’s an intractable divide between the LPGA and the NCAA that creates a situation where no one really wins.

“The timing couldn’t be worse,’’ says Mary Lou Mulflur, now in her 33rd season as the UW golf coach. “Virtually all of the players say yes, because of the degree of difficulty it takes to be among the top qualifiers. That means college teams who have just lost their best player(s) have to scramble. At that point in the season, it’s not like they can recruit and recover. They have what they have. It would be like the NFL holding its college scouting combine in December and requiring players to immediately declare as professionals before bowl games or the College Football Playoff.”

Yes, or no. Go pro, or stay amateur? Players must decide right then — as Mulflur notes, “They can’t defer their status to start (the Tour) in June.” Both Kim and Yan said yes.

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