Attention is firmly on a top-10 finish in the Ladies European Tour (LET) Order of Merit for Amelia Garvey following the New Zealander’s best ever result on the circuit.
Garvey produced a stunning Sunday at the Wistron Ladies Open in Chinese Taipei firing a 65 (-7) to soar up the leaderboard and finish runner-up to Yani Tseng.
Having finished solo third on three occasions prior to that, Garvey, still a rookie on Tour, shot up to 12th in the season-long standings. The top-10 at the end of the year will qualify for the Final Stage of LPGA Q-Series in December, making this the 25-year-old’s primary target.
“Top-10 on the Order of Merit at the end of the year is my goal,” Garvey said, who missed out on advancing to Final Stage through official qualifying last month. “It was out of the picture until last week. Honestly, I’m just trying to play really good golf and know I need to have a top-three or top-five finish in the last two events. [I will try to] stay aggressive and make as many birdies as possible.”
The Sunday 65 (-7) in Chinese Taipei was Garvey’s best round to date on the LET. One of the biggest hitters on Tour, the Kiwi is now boosted with confidence following the hot finish.
“I am feeling really good with my finish at Wistron,” she continued. “It was a crazy week and I really had no expectations because our preparation wasn’t great. I had played that course before as an amateur and won the Individual side of the event, so knew that it suited me.
“In the first round we made some changes tactically and I wanted to go out in the second round and be really aggressive as I knew it was just a two-round tournament and I needed to put a number up. I blacked out I think on the front nine, I was hitting it inside 15-feet and holing a lot of those which got me to six-under through the front nine. I couldn’t believe I was in contention as I was six shots back starting the round. I’m really proud of myself to jump up the leaderboard with just one round remaining.”
As for this week, Garvey tees up at the Aramco China Championship – the penultimate event of the 2025 season – where she feels the Mission Hills Resort course will suit her once again. The tournament also follows an off-week where the 25-year-old was able to unwind in Asia.
Garvey said: “I went to Hong Kong in my week off, we explored the city and played some really great courses. I fell in love with the place. It’s a beautiful city; you get the best of everything there. You have amazing island mountainous views but also a really nice city with great food and restaurants. I spent Halloween with my best mates, so it was really fun.
“[This week] I’m loving the course. I think it suits a long-hitter and you can really take advantage of the par-5s. That’s where I’m going to be able to make most of my good numbers. Hopefully I can take advantage of that.
“The challenges are definitely the greens with how firm they are, they’re getting pretty rock hard out there. It’s going to be about leaving yourself in the right places, you can’t short-side yourself because it’s really tough to get the ball to stop on the greens.”
Garvey, nominated for October Player of the Month, sits 108.94 points behind 10th placed Lauren Walsh in the Order of Merit. This means she needs, at the very least, a top-10 finish in China to overtake her Irish rival.
The New Zealander gets underway in Shenzhen at 9:52am on Thursday. As a captain in the Team competition, Garvey will tee up alongside USA’s Brianna Navarossa, Sweden’s Lisa Pettersson and compatriot Momoka Kobori.
“I picked Bri,” she explained. “I went to college with her and she’s one of my best friends. I haven’t played a tournament round with her yet. We have played 90% of practice rounds together, so it’s going to be really fun. Also having Momoka in my team is going to be amazing, I grew up playing junior golf with her since I was 10 or 11. To have her in my team, it’s going to be really good fun playing with some friends.”
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