Jeongeun Lee6 Wins 2026 IOA Golf Classic for First Victory Since 2019 U.S. Women’s Open

Jeongeun Lee6 after winning the 2026 IOA Golf Classic (Photo: Isaiah Bell/Epson Tour)

By the time Jeongeun Lee6 stood over her tee shot on the 18th hole Sunday afternoon, the air at Alaqua Country Club was flat and heavy. The cloud cover that had softened the first two rounds of the IOA Golf Classic was gone, and what was left in its place was the kind of Florida March heat that makes a 71-par layout feel like something considerably longer. Players who had cruised through Thursday and Friday were grinding. Swings that had felt fluid two days earlier were getting sticky.

Lee6 had been grinding all day. Two bogeys on the front nine. An eagle on 13 that briefly steadied things. A birdie on 16 to get her nose in front. Now she was standing on the 18th tee, and the number her caddie gave her — her personal trainer and manager, who had been on the bag all week — was 116 meters to a par-3 that had been playing as the easiest hole on the course all week.

She needed a birdie. She knew it. And she stood there, in the heat, and figured out how to make it happen.

“Yes, if I made a birdie, I can win. I knew that,” Lee6 said afterward. “But it was 116 meters. So I was thinking a controlled nine or full pitching wedge shot. So I changed the club to the pitching wedge and then full shot, and I made it.”

She couldn’t see the ball land from the tee box. She walked to the green and found it sitting two feet from the cup. Made the putt. Raised her arms. Seven years between wins, and it came down to a full pitching wedge and a two-footer at a country club in Longwood.

To understand what Sunday meant, you have to back up a little.

Jeongeun Lee6 is not a stranger to this game. She won the U.S. Women’s Open in 2019 — her first LPGA Tour victory — becoming just the 19th player in history to make a major her first win on tour. She took home the Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year award that same season. In the years that followed, she accumulated 25 top-10 finishes on the LPGA and earned $4.7 million in career prize money.

Then the swing issues came. The results dried up. She lost her LPGA card after 2025. And so here she was in 2026, her first season on the Epson Tour, playing Monday qualifiers to try to get into LPGA events while also competing on a developmental circuit that her résumé technically has no business being on. She was the best player in this field by career accolades, and also a player with something real to prove — mostly to herself.

“I mean, it’s amazing,” she said of the win. “I was waiting so much for my second win. I lost my card last year. I’ve been frustrated with my swing for a few years, but I met a new swing coach. So I’m getting much better. And I gained confidence from this tournament.”

She’d thought she could manage the week without a caddie, but reached out to her personal trainer before the tournament and asked him to carry the bag. He said yes. By Sunday, with the heat at its worst and the trophy on the line, she was glad he was there.

“I’m really happy to be together,” she said. “I want to say thank you. To him and my swing coach.”

The back nine Sunday was not a comfortable place to be for most of the afternoon. Hole 17, the par-4 that had played as the hardest hole on the course in the final round — a 4.574 average — was collecting victims. The field averaged more than two shots over par on it across the tournament, and Sunday was no kinder. Lee6 parred it when she needed to, which was no small thing.

She’d started the day in a three-way tie for the lead alongside Haylee Harford Sanchez and Liqi Zeng, then wobbled. A bogey on No. 6 — where the field was also dropping shots — and then another on No. 9 left her turning at just 2-under for the day. Whatever cushion she’d shared heading into Sunday was gone. She was no longer at the top of the leaderboard.

That’s when the par-5s took over.

No. 13 at Alaqua played as the most generous hole on the back nine all week, and Lee6 made it count. She found her eagle there, on a hole that the field birdied or better 47 times in round three alone. After a birdie on 12 had gotten her feet back under her, the eagle on 13 was the swing that put her back in the conversation. She parred her way through the danger of 17, birdied 16, and then went to 18 needing one more.

Final round: 6-under 65. Three-under on the back nine when it mattered most. Thirteen-under for the tournament, one clear of the field.

The closest thing to a spoiler Sunday was Jiwon Jeon, and it wasn’t particularly close in terms of the quality of golf she played.

Jeon had spent most of the week buried in the middle of the leaderboard, tied for 13th and sitting at 4-under through 36 holes. She went out Sunday and shot 8-under 63 — bogey-free — which was the low round of the tournament and might have won on most other days. One eagle. Six birdies. Not a single dropped shot in Florida heat with no cloud cover.

The run from holes 8 through 10 was the spine of her round: three consecutive birdies where she locked in on process and stopped thinking about anything else. Back-to-back birdies to open the back nine turned into two more birdies and an eagle, and by the time she was done, the University of Alabama alum was sitting in the clubhouse at 12-under, hoping the leaders still on the course couldn’t quite reach her.

Lee6 reached her. By one.

“I’m very proud of myself shooting 8 under today,” Jeon said. “To be honest, I didn’t know I was shooting 8 under. I was just literally focused on each shot, turning up. Try not to think about the results at all.”

Jeon had said earlier in the round that she’d spent the offseason trying to rebuild her game and her confidence after a couple of off years. That work showed in every clean scorecard hole Sunday. She doesn’t have a win to show for the day, but she played herself into the conversation for the rest of 2026 in a way she hadn’t been before the week started.

Mariel Galdiano came into Sunday one shot off the 36-hole lead — she’d been sitting one back of Lee6, Harford Sanchez, and Liqi Zeng — and did everything right for most of the afternoon, finishing solo third at 11-under.

The Hawaii native who played collegiately at UCLA is no stranger to Alaqua. She’s played two seasons on the Epson Tour, competed a full year on the LPGA last season, and walks onto a first tee with a certain comfort level that newer players don’t always have. That experience showed in how she navigated the heat Sunday.

She hit it straight. On a course that rewards straightness above most things, that’s the game plan, and hers held up. Her ball striking was the best it had been all week — she’d struggled the week prior and came to Longwood specifically looking to find some fairways again — and on a day when the greens were playing firmer in the afternoon sun, finding the right parts of the fairway mattered.

Her best moment of the round came on 13, the same hole that rescued Lee6. Galdiano had planned to lay up. The group ahead of her was still on the green, so she waited. Then she hit a four-hybrid that took one large hop on the firm ground, rolled out, and left her a 20-to-30 footer for eagle. She read it, put a good stroke on it, and watched it track in.

“I was just like, oh wow,” she said. “But I felt really guilty about hitting it on the ground.”

She also played with her best friend and her family in the gallery Sunday, which added a layer to what was already a strong week. Eight top-10s now in her Epson Tour career, and she’s carrying momentum into the Florida swing’s final event — still hunting her first professional win.

Somewhere outside the title chase, Amari Avery was quietly putting together one of the more impressive rounds of the day.

She’d started Sunday in a tie for 26th at 1-under, which is not where anyone wants to be on Championship Sunday. But Avery made a decision on the range that morning: play the par-5s the way she had on Saturday, play the par-3s the way she had in round one, and see what happens. What happened was a 6-under 65 — one bogey, two separate three-birdie streaks, and a three-wood off the fairway at No. 10 that she flushed about 250 yards to set up a birdie that nearly became an eagle.

It’s only the second event of the 2026 season, but Avery has made both cuts and played well in both, and the ball striking she’s been leaning on is holding up. She finished tied for eighth at 7-under.

“I kind of changed my strategy on the par threes and stayed really aggressive on the par-5’s,” she said, “and I think it worked out.”

She sits at No. 13 in the Race for the Card standings with plenty of season left to move up.

Jessica Porvasnik was another player who went low Sunday without quite climbing to the top. The Ohio State alum shot 6-under 65, bogey-free, and rattled off four consecutive birdies on holes 4 through 7 — she turned in 29, which is about as clean as it gets at Alaqua. She finished fourth at 10-under, and now has 11 career top-10s on the Epson Tour.

Lee6 jumped to No. 1 in the 2026 Race for the Card standings with the win, collecting 500 points and $30,000 from the $200,000 purse. The win is her second professional victory — first on the Epson Tour — and the first time she’s hoisted a trophy since the U.S. Women’s Open seven years ago.

She has to go through Monday qualifying every time she wants into an LPGA event. She knows that. She said she wants to use the confidence from this week and keep grinding toward getting her card back.

“I have to play Monday qualifying school every LPGA tournament,” she said, “so I gained confidence with this tournament, and I want to focus on just my game. I want to play again on the LPGA Tour.”

One pitching wedge at a time.

The Epson Tour moves to Lakeland, Florida, next week for the inaugural Orlando Health Championship at Grasslands Golf & Country Club, running March 20-22.

Top 10 Leaderboard of the IOC Golf Classic

Race for the Card Standings after 2 weeks: