VERO BEACH — Local golfers won’t find Jackie Stoelting working at Vero Beach’s Golf Roundup anymore – not this year, anyway.
“This is the first offseason that I’m not going to work,” Stoelting said. “I’m going to dedicate my time on becoming a better golfer and getting stronger, physically. I want to be ready to go when the tour starts up in January.”
The Vero Beach native played her way onto the LPGA Tour – the major league of women’s golf – by finishing No. 3 on the Symetra Tour’s 2014 money list with earnings in excess of $60,452.
That total includes the $11,872 Stoelting pocketed for her runner-up showing in last weekend’s Symetra Tour Championship at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, where she rallied from eight strokes back to shoot a final round 64 and join a three-way playoff.
She birdied the first extra hole, but lost when Norway’s Marita Engzelius sank a five-foot eagle putt.
“It’s unusual to birdie and lose in a playoff,” said Stoelting, who jumped five spots on the money list with her performance Sunday when she birdied five of her last seven holes in regulation. “But I was able to enjoy the moment because I knew I had my (LPGA Tour) card.”
Stoelting, 28, ended the Symetra Tour season with seven top-10 finishes – six top fives, including three seconds, one third, one fourth and one fifth – and only one missed cut in 19 events.
That consistency made the 2008 Florida Southern College graduate one of 10 Symetra Tour players to earn their LPGA Tour playing privileges for 2015.
Stoelting won “Big Break Florida,” the most recent season of the Golf Channel’s popular, reality-TV show last fall, and received $65,000 in cash and more than $30,000 in prizes.
She credits that experience, and its rewards, with making her a better golfer.
“That was a huge confidence booster for me and big help, financially,” Stoelting said. “The pressure of Big Break helped me tremendously as a competitor. And, financially, it helped to know I had the money I needed to play on tour. For years, I’ve had to work every offseason and live paycheck to paycheck.”
But not this year.
This offseason, after competing in the inaugural Big Break Invitational (Sept. 30 to Oct. 3) in Georgia, she’ll be preparing to play on the LPGA Tour.
“This is what I’ve worked so hard for these last few years,” Stoelting said. “It’s nice to see all that hard work pay off.”
