Canadian Maddie Szeryk excited to return to LPGA Tour for second season in 2023

After one of the most stressful two weeks of the season, Maddie Szeryk and her family are returning to Canada for a relaxing Christmas break with her extended family in London, Ontario.

Szeryk qualified for her second season at the top women’s golf course on Sunday. She tied for 17th at 17 under in the Q-Series to earn her 2023 LPGA Tour card. Szeryk, 26, said she was ready for some well-earned rest after a grueling eight-round fight on Aug. 8, 2018. Robert Trent Jones Golf Course in Alabama in two weeks.

“I didn’t bring my golf clubs or play any golf,” said Szeryk, who lives in Dallas. “I’m just looking back on the past year and giving my mind, my body and everything a rest.

“And then in the new year, I’ll start training again, start to get more intense and just step up and make sure I’m really ready for the season.”

Korea’s Hae-ran Yoo finished first in the Q-Series with a 29-under par, with American Bailey Tardy finishing second two strokes behind her.

Szeryk joins Brooke Henderson of Smith Falls, Ont., Maude-Aimée Leblanc of Sherbrooke, Quebec, and Alena Sharp of Hamilton as the only Canadians eligible to play on the LPGA Tour next season.

She said the Q line was “weary” physically and mentally.

“These two weeks define my form for the whole next year, so it’s not just an ordinary game,” Szeryk said. “It’s also just a different mindset, with eight rounds instead of four.

“You just have to stay in the moment. You might have a bad hole or whatever because it’s eight rounds, but you just have to move on to the next hole and it’s going to be fine.”

Szeryk acknowledged she’s having a hard time adjusting to the LPGA Tour in 2022, but said she found her footing at the CP Women’s Open, where she tied for 26th at Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club on Aug. 25. She advanced three more times, including at The Ascendant LPGA on Sept. 29 in Irving, Texas, where she tied for 24th at the American Volunteers Association.

“I thought it was comfortable being there, seeing my ability to play a couple of rounds and be at the top of the leaderboard,” Szeryk said of what she learned during her rookie year. “Just really being able to be more comfortable on the outside and getting to know the whole routine of it, because it was pretty overwhelming at first.

“I think after the breakthrough at the Canadian Open, it was like, ‘OK, this is possible.'”

Szeryk said she has yet to pick her first game of the new season.