A LOT will be at stake for Bianca Pagdanganan when she resumes her campaign in the US LPGA Tour tomorrow in The Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican tournament at the Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida.
After missing the recent four-leg Asian swing of the tour, Pagdanganan slipped from a high of No. 48 to 60 in the Race to CME Globe Season overall standings, with only the top 60 advancing to the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.
The prestigious tournament offering a total pot of $7 million and a whopping $2 million (about P112 million) winner’s purse is scheduled from Nov. 16 to 19 at the Tiburon Golf Club Gold Course in Naples, Florida and the cast won’t be finalized until the penultimate competition is over.
She needs a strong finish in the tournament offering a championship purse of $487,500 (P27.3 million) over the par-70, 6,268-yard course to boost her bid to regain her LPGA Tour card and make her way back to the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024.
A three-year tour veteran, Pagdanganan must wind up within the top 100 of the CME Globe Season overall standings to regain her card following a dismal 2022 season.
The absence of the 2019 Southeast Asian Games double gold medalist from the previous legs led to her slipping from No. 42 to No. 59 in the International Golf Federation Olympic women’s rankings where the top 60 finishers at the end of the cut-off on June 24 next year make it to the glamorous French capital.
Former golf prodigy Dottie Ardina, who is also seeing action together with Pagdanganan in the Belleair golfest, is also in a precarious position, one rung higher than her compatriot at No. 58 in the standings released by the IGF last Monday.