Over the next several weeks LPGA.com will take a look back at Epson Tour players landing inside the top-10. This edition of the 'Meet the Epson Tour Grads" features Mallory Blackwelder. She had four top finishes including her first win at the Epson Classic. She finished ranked No. 10 in the Volvik Race for the Card and earned LPGA membership for the 2015 season.
Mallory Blackwelder thought she was on the fast track to the LPGA Tour. She graduated after a stellar career at Kentucky in 2009 and at her very first LPGA Qualifying Tournament she earned membership in Category 17.
She only played in three LPGA Tour events in 2010 and wound up playing most of the year on the Ladies European Tour (she played in just five Epson Tour events that year).
She played well in 2011 on the Epson Tour, but finished 27th on the Volvik Race for the Card money list.
Injuries started to slow Blackwelder down. In 2012, she had to have elbow surgery and wound up playing in just three Epson Tour events. Then, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, which she monitors closely to this day.
Blackwelder played with pain in 2013 and finished 95th on the money list, making just seven cuts in 14 events.
After getting healthy through a combination of medication to control the arthritis and a complete change of diet including going gluten free, Blackwelder was ready to attack the 2014 season.
She was incredibly consistent, posting ten top 20 results and made the cut in 17 of 20 starts.
Her breakthrough moment was in Charlotte, with her mom Myra on hand, when she captured her first win. Myra was the LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year in 1980.
Blackwelder comes from a family of golf. Her mom and dad met at Qualifying Tournament and her dad, Worth, still caddies on the LPGA Tour for Kim Kaufman. Her brother, Myles, also caddies on Tour for fellow Epson Tour graduate Marissa Steen.
That’s not the end of her family golf story. Blackwelder met her now husband, Julien Trudeau, on Big Break Ireland. They were both contestants on the show. Blackwelder also appeared on Big Break NFL Puerto Rico. She was a semi-finalist on both shows. In 2014, the couple competed together on Golf Channel’s Big Break Invitational.
Trudeau, who nearly got his PGA TOUR card in 2010, has been Graham DeLeat’s caddie on the PGA TOUR since June of 2012.
Although Blackwelder is not a rookie because she earned status in 2009, 2015 marks her first voyage into life playing on the LPGA Tour.
Remember, she grew up living on the LPGA Tour, when her mom was traveling. Myra’s best year on the LPGA Tour came in 1988, the year after Mallory was born.
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