Meghan MacLaren: “To see the brutality of our game, take a trip to Q School”

Meghan MacLaren Q School

Ladies European Tour star Meghan MacLaren takes a trip to LPGA Q School, where golf dreams go to die.

What do you think you would do if your future came down to a two-week examination? What would you do if a whole year’s – or career’s – worth of work was either signed off or thrown out the window, based on the results of one final examination?

Q School is a strange place. It’s not fun, nor enjoyable – even if you’re someone who usually likes challenges. Because if this particular challenge is a little too much, or you’re just a little off, or your body can’t quite catch up with your mind, you’re done.

There’s no “try again next week”. Your dream – your career – is on hold for another year. At the same time, you’re within touching distance of something you really want. You’re so close you can feel it, smell it, taste it. It’s waiting for you to reach out and take it after you sign your name on your scorecard. But it’s also a smokescreen.

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That might sound a little melodramatic. Maybe it is. I hope it goes without saying that being able to play golf for a living, whatever kind of living that is, is a dream come true for a lot of people, myself included. Not many people get to do what they love every day. But professional sport is also about more than just enjoying yourself and having fun – you can be appreciative at the same time as being determined, and disciplined, and driven. You can enjoy what you are doing every day while still being restless and dissatisfied. That’s the nature of professional sport, in my opinion at least. I understand that not everyone wants to be the best in their field, or constantly strive to be better – but, for me, that’s what golf is about: trying to fulfil your potential.

To that end, getting to the LPGA (or PGA/European Tour) is the ultimate dream for many aspiring professional golfers. If it’s where the best players in the world are, it’s where you want to be. It’s where you want to belong. Each tour has its own different pathway to do that, but Q School is by far the most brutal of those.

It only comes around once a year – or two years in this case, because of Covid (and longer for the European Tour) – and if you fail, it’s back to the drawing board. It’s expensive, stressful, and draining. I’ve reached the final stage of LPGA Q School (itself quite a difficult thing to do) on three separate occasions and never got over that line. It’s soul-sapping. 

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And yet the irony is, I could spend this whole column writing about how much better a player I was the second time I got to that final stage, and then again from the second time to the third time. But Q School doesn’t care how much better you are the next time you arrive. Q School doesn’t care if you’ve overcome some demons, or cemented a better takeaway move, or gained 30 yards off the tee, or not three-putted for three consecutive tournaments. Q School doesn’t care if you’re ready. It only cares if you finish inside the number.

Of course, the fall-back argument to all these Q School musings is the same one that my subconscious fights daily – if you are good enough, you should be good enough. To a certain extent, that’s true. If I want to play at the level I want to play at I clearly need to be better; and that will hold true for a lot of people. 

But if you’re reading this, in a best-selling golf magazine, possibly looking for tips and drills and insights to make your own game better, I don’t doubt you understand the fickle nature of golf. 

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How, on any given day, it can give and it can take away before you’ve had time to catch your breath. Golf spins you around so fast that sometimes you’re not sure which direction you started in. Over the course of eight rounds, with everything on the line, at the end of an already draining year, it’s inevitable you’ll get spun around a few times. Unfortunately this time I couldn’t straighten myself up quickly enough.

So, for now, I’ll have to wait a bit longer for the LPGA. To be honest, though, even if this time it hurts more than any other, I’m more motivated than I’ve ever been. I’m not 100 percent sure on the path I’ll take in 2022 yet – but one thing is for certain; my goals aren’t changing. I know where I’m going, even if I don’t know quite how long it’ll take me to get there. And to all of you, reading this, thanks for being a part of this crazy ride we’re all on in our beloved sport. Here’s to a better 2022, for all of us.

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