{"id":288461,"date":"2025-11-13T04:39:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T04:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/288461\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T04:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T04:39:11","slug":"as-first-alternate-amanda-doherty-plays-waiting-game-at-the-annika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/288461\/","title":{"rendered":"As first alternate, Amanda Doherty plays waiting game at The Annika"},"content":{"rendered":"

BELLEAIR, Fla. \u2013 Amanda Doherty was one of the last players on the range Wednesday afternoon at Pelican Golf Club, putting some final swings in before The Annika driven by Gainbridge, the LPGA\u2019s penultimate event, begins Thursday morning. The atmosphere around the tony property had long calmed following pro-am rounds by WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark and 18-year-old Kai Trump, the eldest granddaughter of the President and one of three sponsor exemptions into this week\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n

Doherty, though, doesn\u2019t have a tee time \u2013 at least not yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m preparing like I\u2019m in,\u201d said Doherty, currently the first alternate for the 108-player field, \u201cand then it\u2019s just, you know, kind of waiting. I thought there was a decent chance, but now, probably pretty slim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doherty, a 22-year-old who turned pro in 2020 out of Florida, earned her LPGA card via the Epson Tour in 2021, then finished 90th and 102nd in CME points in her first two seasons; two years ago, she tied for 15th here at The Annika, but still lost her full card. She managed to get into last year\u2019s field at Pelican despite making only seven starts, and while she ended No. 133 in points, she tied for 24th at the final stage of LPGA Q-School to secure Category 15 status for this season.<\/p>\n

And yet, Doherty began this year, just south of Belleair at Bradenton Country Club, in a similar position as this week: on the alternate list. She didn\u2019t make her first start until March at the Blue Bay LPGA in China. She rattled off two made cuts, though a missed weekend in Los Angeles at the JM Eagle LA Championship cost her a spot in the Chevron Championship, the year\u2019s first major, by about a half point. She\u2019d make 11 more starts before this week, missing six of those cuts, four of which were by single shots. She started working with a new stats guy, Alex Huang, about midway through the year and notched three straight top-30s this summer, though they spanned over two months.<\/p>\n

She might be higher than No. 135 in CME points entering this week if not for the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship being shortened to 18 holes because of weather; Doherty was T-34 after the first round, but because the tournament was deemed unofficial, she and the rest of the field received no points.<\/p>\n

Doherty called this season \u201cvery underwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just been one of those years where my game feels like it\u2019s solid and it\u2019s just not there on the course,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

When she missed the cut at her last event, the Lotte Championship in early October, Doherty figured she wouldn\u2019t come close to qualifying for The Annika, especially with the event trimming 12 players from last year\u2019s field. \u201cNo chance,\u201d she said. She put the clubs away for two weeks and didn\u2019t bother to write for a sponsor exemption; she had done so for nearly every event last season and had no luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to know the right people, either be already sponsored by them or an amateur or something special particular to that event,\u201d Doherty said, \u201cand I just don\u2019t have anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"GOLF:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sorenstam played nine holes with Trump on Monday at Pelican Golf Club, where the 18-year-old will compete as a sponsor invite, and couldn\u2019t help but think about her controversial PGA Tour invite decades ago.<\/p>\n

Some have called for The Annika to function more like a playoff event, much like the PGA Tour\u2019s BMW Championship, with a smaller field, perhaps around 90 players and no sponsor exemptions or alternates. Doherty prefers the current field size, though is in favor of all the exemptions going to amateurs. She adds that if this was turned into a playoff event, it would just shift the final regular-season event further from final stage, which this year is scheduled for Dec. 4-8. (Nos. 101-150 in points after this week qualify for what is now known as LPGA Final Qualifying.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really doesn\u2019t matter where that last event is where it\u2019s this last ditch for people to save their status,\u201d Doherty said, \u201cbut I like that this is as late as it is so you\u2019re not quite as rusty going into Q-Series.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doherty hopes that she can withdraw from that.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d love to instead procure a tee time on Thursday and play her way into, at least, the top 100 in points.<\/p>\n

But for now, she\u2019ll wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BELLEAIR, Fla. \u2013 Amanda Doherty was one of the last players on the range Wednesday afternoon at Pelican…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-288461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}