Marina Alex Of North Jersey Earns Lpga Tour Card
Marina Alex of Wayne, a former NJSGA Women’s Amateur runner-up, earned an LPGA Tour Card for 2013 with a T27 finish at LPGA Qualifying School at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Fla., the weekend ending Dec. 2.
Alex, 22, of North Jersey Country Club in Wayne, earned Category 17 status, allowing her to play in a limited number of LPGA Tour events. Players in the Top 20 and ties earned Category 12 priority status for the LPGA Tour.
Alex posted rounds of 70-73-76-67-73-359 (-1) during the five-day tournament to become one of 28 golfers that secured partial membership. She came up just shy of earning full membership, finishing two strokes out of the top 20.
“It’s a good feeling, an accomplishment that has brought me one step closer to my goal of being a full-time LPGA Tour player,” Alex said. “As a Category 17 player, I can play in up to 10 or 12 events. It depends on if I can play well in my initial starts. That would give me an opportunity to move up.”
She will still be a full-time member of the LPGA’s developmental Symetra Tour. Last year, Alex competed in seven events on the Symetra Tour and posted two Top 10 finishes and a season-best T3 at the Challenge at Musket Ridge in Maryland.
“The biggest thing for me is working harder to save pars. I’m giving myself a ton of birdie opportunities, but I’m not capitalizing on them,” she said. “That’s what I want to work at this winter.”
She was runner-up in the NJSGA Women’s Amateur at Rumson in 2005 to Kelly Cramp of Hopewell Valley.
Alex, who was selected First-Team All-American in 2012 and 2010 while playing for Vanderbilt University, was one of 76 players to advance to the final stage of Q-School. She is one of 35 LPGA Tour rookies for 2013, representing 14 different countries, and one of 17 Americans.
In September, the Alex family, including her talented 18-year-old brother, Anthony, moved to Ponte Vedra, Fla., but Marina said “I am still a Jersey girl. That’s the way I will be announced at tournaments. I’m excited to be a member of the LPGA Tour. I will have a lot of opportunities to do well this year.”
At Vanderbilt, she won the 2010 individual Southeastern Conference Championship and was SEC runner-up in 2012 as a senior. She also participated in the LPGA ShopRite Classic this past June at Seaview Resort in Galloway and made the cut. She finished T40 and won $6,579.
For Wayne Hills High School, she was a two-time winner of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association champion and set a tournament standard with a 5-under par 32 to win one of them by a record eight shots.
Alex qualified for three USGA Junior Girls Championships.
In 2009, she qualified for the U.S. Women's Open at Saucon Valley Golf Club in Bethlehem, Pa., after finishing fourth at sectional qualifying at Neshanic Valley. She won medalist honors at local qualifying for the Open in Pinehurst.
She also earned an exemption to the U.S. Women's Amateur in St. Louis after qualifying for the U.S. Open and finished in a tie for second place in U.S. Amateur stroke play that summer.
--Mike Moretti
