DAYTONA BEACH – Mel Reid finally got a break.
Sunday, the five-time winner on the Ladies European Tour earned her card for 2017 on the LPGA Tour. Reid carded rounds of 69 – 64 – 75 – 72 – 72 to finish T-8, well inside the top-20 earning membership for next season. For a player who has endured a series of bad breaks in recent years – losing her mother in a car accident in 2012 and missing the deadline for last year’s qualifying tournament – the feat comes with a sigh of relief for not only Reid but also her team, who made joining the LPGA Tour their main goal of 2016.
“Just super, super relieved and Benji today was awesome,” Reid said about her caddie. “He’s struggling, he’s not feeling that well. I mean just really, really happy with everyone on my team, really.”
Like her caddie, Reid was also feeling ill this week, coming down with a cold ahead of her round on Friday, further compounding the endurance test that comes with completing 90 holes to qualify for the Tour. But Reid took it in stride as yet another challenge to overcome.
“You know what I said to Benji, I said ‘I don’t feel well’ on the third day. He said ‘Really, I didn’t expect anything else,’’ Reid said. “It’s just the way it goes with me sometimes. I’m hoping my life now is going to run a little bit smoother and you never know now I might win early on the LPGA. Hey, nothing worth having comes easy does it?”
Reid’s future in golf hinged on the outcome of her play this week in Daytona Beach, telling LPGA.com at the start of the week that she would be reevaluating her future in golf if she didn’t earn her card this week. That decision was made for her on Sunday.
“I was kinda gonna cross that bridge when I got to it. I just felt like I wasn’t enjoying Europe as much, I’d been out there 8 years, which in my opinion I know I lost four years with my mum and stuff but I felt last year obviously it was a mistake I was supposed to be here but I was really upset about that and you know it was one thing after another,” Reid said. “I wasn’t necessarily going to give up, but I was just going to I don’t know. Maybe I would have done it, but I’m not a giver upper. I probably would have played full time on Epson and you know just sacrifice a little bit financially and got myself out here this way.”
The two-time European Solheim Cup member is expected to relocate to the United States and begin playing a full schedule on the LPGA Tour.
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