Adam Stanley/ Canadian Press
Maddie Szeryk looks like her sport has became a nook the remaining couple of weeks. And that feeling has come at a great time as she prepares to tee it up on the ultimate full-field tournament of the LPGA Excursion’s 2023 agenda.
Szeryk, of London, Ont., lately sits 99th within the Race to CME Globe, the LPGA Excursion’s season-long issues checklist. The highest 100 after this week’s tournament — The Annika at Pelican Golfing Membership — will stay their LPGA Excursion standing for 2024.
Szeryk is lately 2.6 issues forward of Spain’s Azahara Munoz at No. 100.
“It’s onerous to make it larger than it’s, like, ‘Oh, I’ve to play superb.’ On the finish of the day, I’m going to check out to play my best possible and play in addition to I will and anywhere I finally end up is the place I finally end up,” Szeryk mentioned via telephone from Belleair, Fla.
“You don’t know the way the opposite ladies are going to play. Shall we all end peak 10 and it may well be tremendous shut. Or lets end all over the place the board. I will most effective do my phase and play in addition to I will and notice the place I finally end up on the finish of the week.”
Szeryk is in her 2d complete yr at the LPGA Excursion. Her best possible results of the season got here in her first tournament, the LPGA Power On Championship in March, the place she completed tied for 7th.
The 27-year-old struggled during the summer time, lacking six of 7 cuts from July till September. However she’s discovered the weekend in her remaining two tournaments and completed in a tie for twenty sixth remaining month on the LPGA Shanghai match — her best possible end result on excursion in 3 months.
“Everybody will get on those little runs and it’s like, ‘OK, any time now can be nice (to show issues round),” Szeryk mentioned. “I felt like a large number of the ones weeks I used to be shut. I may see issues have been getting a bit nearer after which the previous couple of weeks it in the end clicked.”
Szeryk says her convenience degree this yr has been “approach upper” than 2022. Closing yr she had to go back to the LPGA Excursion’s qualifying college to earn complete standing once more for 2023, a gruelling eight-round marathon with the highest 45 and ties receiving their playing cards. Szeryk completed tied for seventeenth.
In talking with different gamers at the LPGA Excursion, she learned it takes a couple of yr to really feel pleased with the trip and the logistics of girls’s skilled golfing on the best degree.
“I’ve undoubtedly had a greater agenda and I do know what I’m doing as opposed to eager about after I may play, what I will have to do, or the place I will have to pass,” Szeryk mentioned.
Szeryk has attempted to stay issues as equivalent as imaginable during the yr in the case of her equipment and preparation, even if she mentioned her and her longtime caddie (they’d been in combination since July of remaining yr) break up after the she neglected the reduce on the Canadian Ladies’s Open in Vancouver.
Szeryk mentioned she’s been suffering off the tee this yr and sits 106th at the LPGA Excursion in using accuracy. She was once 57th in the similar statistic remaining yr.
“The remaining couple of weeks, as a rule after I made a bogey it was once I used to be totally out of play,” Szeryk mentioned. “(This week) in reality going to ensure the large focal point is getting my motive force a minimum of in play.
“I think like I’m on the right track which is at all times comforting and what you need to look.”
Szeryk shall be one among two Canadians within the area at The Annika, and the opposite one received’t be being worried about their place within the season-long standings.
Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., sits 14th within the issues checklist and is derived into the development after a tie for 6th on the Maybank Championship two weeks in the past — her 3rd top-10 of the yr.
Henderson received the season-opening Hilton Grand Holidays Event of Champions for her thirteenth LPGA Excursion identify.
The highest 60 at the Race to CME Globe on the finish of the week earn their approach into the LPGA Excursion’s season finale, the CME Team Excursion Championship, the place they’ll compete for the largest prize in girls’s golfing — a US$7-million handbag, with $2 million going to the winner.
The Annika starts Thursday at Pelican Golfing Membership in Belleair. Global No. 6 Nelly Korda is the two-time protecting champion.
