Leah John couldn\u2019t stop calling friends and family members, screaming.<\/p>\n
The Vancouver native was working her phone non-stop after qualifying for the LPGA Tour on Tuesday through the final qualifying tournament of the top-flight women\u2019s golf circuit\u2019s Q-Series. Veteran player Maude-Aimee Leblanc of Sherbrooke, Que., also earned a card through the qualifying process, joining Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., on the LPGA Tour for 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the best days of my life,\u201d said John on Wednesday as she travelled back home. \u201cBut at the same time, it will take a couple of days to settle into the fact of it and really accept it and feel like I can hold that for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old John played on the second-tier Epson Tour in 2024 and 2025, winning this year\u2019s Four Winds Invitational. She has made two previous starts on the LPGA Tour at the 2024 CPKC Women\u2019s Open in Calgary and this past year\u2019s U.S. Women\u2019s Open.<\/p>\n
John has four top-10 finishes on the Epson Tour over her career and made 19 cuts in 32 starts over her two seasons on that circuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst people I called were my parents,\u201d said John. \u201cThey were funny. They\u2019re like, \u2018we haven\u2019t been able to work all day.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI called them because it is about you, but it\u2019s also everybody else who\u2019s been on the journey with you. That achievement is also theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Leblanc first joined the LPGA Tour in 2012 but lost her card this past season after only making the cut three times in 10 starts. That forced her to go back through qualifying.<\/p>\n
Henderson, 28, finished 27th on the LPGA Tour\u2019s rankings, easily maintaining her card. <\/p>\n
The winningest professional golfer in Canadian history, Henderson had a slow start to 2025 but turned her year around when she won the Women\u2019s Open, Canada\u2019s national championship, at Mississaugua Golf and Country Club in Mississauga, Ont.<\/p>\n
John said she was excited to join the more experienced Leblanc and Henderson on tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, it is epic,\u201d said John. \u201cI really believe in the coaches at Golf Canada, especially, but even just the quality of talent in Canada. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always really nice to keep growing that. I\u2019ve said this before, but I really want to bring some energy and character to the LPGA, and I think it\u2019s nice to do that as a Canadian.\u201d<\/p>\n
GRANT THORNTON INVITATIONAL \u2014 Henderson and Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., will team up once again for this week\u2019s Grant Thornton Invitational. They\u2019re the only Canadians in the field when the event, co-sanctioned by the LPGA and PGA Tours, tees off on Friday. Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla., will host the 16 pairings in the three-day tournament.<\/p>\n
DP WORLD TOUR \u2014 Aaron Cockerill of Stony Mountain, Man., is the lone Canadian in the field at the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Royal Johannesburg Club in South Africa. It\u2019s the fourth event in the opening swing of the European-based tour\u2019s schedule.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2025.<\/p>\n
John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leah John couldn\u2019t stop calling friends and family members, screaming. The Vancouver native was working her phone non-stop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-338447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}