When the longest, most pressure-packed week of her life was over and Leah John had realized her childhood dream of qualifying to play on the LPGA Tour, the Vancouver native was overcome with emotion.
“I just started bawling,” John said over the phone. “Everyone was crying. My parents were crying when I Face-timed with them right after the round, my boyfriend is so excited. It’s so cool. My friends are all texting me. That’s the best part of this whole thing.”
Several hours after clinching her card, John was still on cloud nine as she was making the drive from Mobile, Ala., to New Orleans for her flight home.
“I have been screaming and jumping for joy,” she said. “If someone could see me in my car right now. I am so jazzed, it feels so unbelievable.”
The final stage of the LPGA Q Series was a week John will never forget, an emotional roller-coaster that tested her game and nerves and left her physically and emotionally drained. “Hands down, the hardest week I have ever gone through,” John said.
“All I can say is that it was so challenging, so emotional, I think I cried every day. You just feel like you are putting all of yourself on the line all the time. You feel very vulnerable, you want it so bad. It’s in your control, but also it’s not, it’s absolutely nuts. I was really surprised how well I was able to pull it off.”
John finished the event, held at two courses at RJT at Magnolia Grove in Mobile, Ala., tied for 10th at eight-under par. The top 25 and ties (31 players) earned their 2026 LPGA Tour cards. The event, originally scheduled for 90 holes, was cut to 72 holes due a number of weather delays. John said all those interruptions in play just added more pressure.
“The golf is one thing and playing in difficult weather is one thing,” John said. “We are used to that in Vancouver, that’s fine. But you have anticipated it for so long and then you get all these delays, so you are not able to get it started and doing the things that make you feel that you are getting it going. That was one of the hardest parts, having to sit with all of the anticipation all of the time. And then, how do you not tell yourself this putt is for the LPGA Tour. It’s just so hard. It’s so hard.”
John’s start to the week made it easier. She opened with an eight-under 64 to grab the first-round lead. “It was nice to have some wiggle room, but anything can happen,” she said. “You never know when you are going to make a double.”
The final round took two days to play. John got eight holes in on Monday, then had to return Tuesday morning to finish her round. But first, there was another delay as a heavy frost had blanketed the course. “It was the hardest 11 holes ever,” John said.
“I just wanted to rise up to the occasion and the challenge of each shot today. I think the worst thing to happen is to succumb to the pressure and feel like you can’t do your best in those moments. I just wanted to still be in it all the way to the end. That was a promise I made to myself early, that no matter what, I am going to give it my absolute all.”
John, 25, is a two-time B.C. Women’s Amateur champion who played her collegiate golf at the University of Nevada. She graduated with a degree in kinesiology in the spring of 2024 and here she is, 18 months later, with her LPGA Tour card. “I laugh because so much has happened since my graduation last year,” John said.
She played a partial season last year on the Epson Tour after graduating. Her 2025 season on the Epson Tour did not start out well. She missed four of her first five cuts and her best finish in her first nine starts was a tie for 50th. But she found her game and in early August won her first Epson Tour title.
Her cell phone, of course, blew up after she clinched her card. John said sharing the news with family and friends has been especially rewarding. One of the first calls she made after her final round was to the pro shop at Marine Drive Golf Club, where John has played since her junior golfing days.
“I am so excited to share it with people,” she said. “Otherwise, it doesn’t actually mean anything.” John can’t wait to get her LPGA career started and hopes she can inspire young women to follow in her footsteps and chase their big dreams.
“I can’t wait to have a platform where I can share my voice,” she said. “I just really want to bring personality to the LPGA, I want to inspire people. I am really excited to have a place where it feels like I can do that. I would love to inspire kids.”
Quebec’s Maude-Aimee Leblanc, who tied for 17th at six-under, was the only other Canadian to make it through Q-school. They will join fellow Canadian Brooke Henderson as LPGA Tour regulars. John joked that her only previous meeting with Henderson came in rather unusual circumstances. “I met her in the bathroom at the Canadian Open last year,” she said.
John plans to celebrate with friends and family after returning home to Vancouver. “I will probably throw a party with a bunch of my buddies. My boyfriend is coming into town. I can’t wait to tell people when they ask me what I do for a living. I always had to explain that the Epson Tour is a valid job. But when I say LPGA, they immediately get it.”
John also planned to reward herself with one little perk on the trip home from New Orleans. “I think I am going to upgrade my flight to first-class,” she said with a laugh.
CHIP SHOTS: Kelowna’s Megan Osland had a tough final day. She began the day tied for 13th but dropped into a tie for 45th with a final-round 77. She will have full status on the Epson Tour next year.