Alexa Pano is one of three players competing in LPGA Q-School too young to advance

Beth Ann Nichols
·1 min read

Stage II of LPGA Qualifying begins this week in Venice, Florida. A field of 179 players will compete in a 72-hole no-cut event Oct. 21-24 on both the Panther and Bobcat Courses at Plantation Golf & Country Club.

The top 45 players and ties will advance to Q-Series, held Nov. 29-Dec. 12 on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama. There are three players in the field, however, who will not be eligible to compete in Alabama because they do not meet the minimum age requirement of 18 for the LPGA.

Florida’s Alexa Pano (17), Xiaowen Yin of China (16) and Chanoknan Angurasaranee of Thailand are the three players who will not be eligible to advance to Q-Series. Every player in the field at Stage II will receive some form of Symetra Tour status based on finish.

Players must be 17 years or older to compete on the Symetra Tour as of January 1, 2021.

Pano told Craig Dolch of the Palm Beach Post in August that new LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan had denied her petition to compete for an LPGA card before the age of 18. Pano made the cut at Stage I on the number.

There are four 18-year-olds in the field for Stage II as well as four 19-year-olds.

Yin, currently the seventh-ranked amateur in the world, has twice won this year on the China LPGA and hasn’t finished outside the top 10 in a ranked event since 2019. She has won eight times in the past two years.

Angurasaranee turned professional in April.