After an extraordinary debut season on the Epson Tour, Lauren Olivares secured her card to play on the LPGA Tour in 2027. The Mexican golfer finished the year with one victory, 12 top-10 finishes in 19 tournaments, and second place in the Race for the Card, completing a leap that began taking shape during her years at NC State.
Lauren Olivares completes an extraordinary debut season on the Epson Tour
The final event on the calendar, the Epson Tour Championship, provided a fitting finish to a season she could hardly have imagined going any better. Olivares arrived at the year’s last tournament with her LPGA card already secured and closed with another top-10 finish, rounding out a remarkably consistent campaign in her first year as a professional. Beyond her results, she led the tour in birdies, a statistic that reflects the aggressive, confident golf she played throughout much of the season.
From Guanajuato to NC State
The scene is very different from the one she encountered when she arrived in Raleigh in 2021 to join NC State. A native of Guanajuato ranked outside the top 900 in the world amateur rankings, Olivares first had to face a challenge that had little to do with golf: adjusting to life in the United States while speaking almost no English. She had tutors for each of her classes and had to balance academics, practice, and life far from home. The support of her teammates, including fellow Mexican Isabella Mezcua, proved essential. “It was pretty difficult, but I had really great teammates. They became my best friends, and that made a huge difference,” she recalled.
A historic NCAA round for Lauren Olivares
On the course, her response was immediate. Olivares won three tournaments during her four years with the Wolfpack and produced one of college golf’s most remarkable rounds. In September 2023, at the Cougar Classic in South Carolina, she shot an 11-under-par 60 with 13 birdies, becoming the first woman in NCAA college golf history to record a 60 in a tournament round. “I finished my round, my coach hugged me, and I thought, well, that was a 60, but I didn’t really feel like it was an NCAA record. Everything seemed to drop into the hole that day,” said the Mexican golfer, just 22 years old.
Augusta National changed her perspective
Her college career brought another important moment in her final year, when she received an invitation to compete in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. She missed the cut by one stroke, but the experience was enough to change her perspective on turning professional. Until then, Olivares had not been certain she could compete against the best in the world. After playing at Augusta, she began to see it as a real possibility. “That was when I thought: I think I can really do this professionally. It opened my eyes. I knew I didn’t have the right structure in place yet, but my golf was good, and I saw that there were a lot of doors open,” she explained.
Her first professional victory on the Epson Tour
The Epson Tour was the next door to open. Once she turned professional, she quickly found the result she needed to affirm her ambitions. In June, she won the Great Lakes Championship at The Highlands in Michigan, defeating Kaleiya Romero in a playoff. On the final playoff hole, she even had the advantage of knowing how the putt would break: she had faced the same putt minutes earlier during regulation play. “I felt like I already had it,” she recalled. The victory moved her toward the top of the Race for the Card and turned the rest of the season into a battle to hold her position.
Focusing on her own game
In that setting, one of the qualities that has stood out most in her first year emerged: her ability to avoid getting distracted by the rankings. “It has really helped me to focus on myself and my own game, instead of trying to be another player,” she explained. For Olivares, the goal does not end with earning her card, either. “You never fully reach the goal you’re chasing; the goal keeps growing, but I like that feeling of always chasing something bigger.”
Following the legacy of Lorena Ochoa and Gaby López
Those words also fit the moment Mexican women’s golf is experiencing. Olivares belongs to a generation that grew up looking to Lorena Ochoa as its greatest role model. The golfer from Jalisco reached world No. 1 and won 27 times on the LPGA Tour, building a career that changed perceptions of what a Mexican woman could achieve in international golf. Gaby López later carried part of that legacy forward: since joining the LPGA Tour in 2016, she has earned three victories and remained one of the country’s leading representatives on the circuit.
Inspiring the next generation of Mexican golfers
Olivares is already beginning to understand what it means to be part of that lineage. Girls in Mexico follow her results and reach out to ask how she got here. “It makes me feel very proud because I know I’m an inspiration to girls in Mexico. I love it when they contact me and ask about my journey. Being able to earn my card and help other girls makes me very happy,” she said.
Preparing for her LPGA Tour debut in 2027
Her focus now is on preparing for her LPGA debut, particularly refining aspects of her short game and putting routine. The tour will bring more demanding courses, more experienced players, and a different level of competition each week. But Olivares arrives with something she has already proven throughout 2026: she can sustain her game over an entire season.
“If someone had told me when I didn’t make it through the final stage of Q-School that I would still earn my card at the end of the season, I would have cried,” she admitted.
Now, that possibility is no longer just an aspiration. In 2027, Lauren Olivares will play her first full season on the LPGA Tour. Mexico will have another player to watch closely.