Since she turned pro in 2012 after completing her collegiate career at South Carolina, Brunswick’s Katie
Burnett has held dual membership on the LPGA and Ladies European Tours.
While the LPGA has been her primary tour since her rookie season in 2013, Burnett has played an
average of seven tournaments a year on the wide-ranging LET, and has been successful enough on both
tours to maintain her dual membership.
Burnett scored her third career runner-up finish last week on the LET in Australia, placing second in the
Bonville Classic, two shots behind Celine Boutier of France, also a member of both tours.
The first runner-up finish for Burnett also came on the LET in the South Africa Women’s Open in 2013,
with her best ever LPGA finish a second in Hawaii in 2016.
Burnett secured her second place finish in Australia with a strong showing over the final two rounds,
closing with scores of 68-69 for the low total over the last 36 holes. She trailed Boutier by six shots
heading to the final round.
For the tournament, Burnett posted scores of 72-71- 68-69 for an 8-under 280 total. She got off to a fast
start, shooting 3-under 32 on her first nine in the opening round, but fell back with a 3-over 40 coming
in. After a solid second round consisting of 15 pars, two birdies and just one bogey, Burnett combined
for 12 birdies the final two days to surge up the leader board.
Burnett traveled to Australia the week before to compete in the Women’s Australian Open, part of the
LPGA Tour, but missed the cut. With the LET playing in Australia the following week, she stuck around
and made it a successful, if lengthy trip, with her runner-up finish.
During her first five seasons on the LPGA Tour, Burnett has been a consistent performer, placing
between 85 and 99 on the money list four times with her highest finish coming in 2016 when she ended
up 73 rd in the final standings.
After placing 99 th as a rookie playing a limited schedule in 2013, Burnett moved up slightly each of the
next three years, finishing 87, 85 and 73 before dropping back to 95 last season. Her 2018 season began
with a missed cut in the season opener in the Bahamas, and her 2017 finish on the money list was not
high enough to get her into the two limited field tournaments in Asia after appearance in Australia.
With the LPGA Tour returning to the U.S. in mid-March, Burnett will be able to compete on a weekly
basis through August with the exception of most of the tour’s majors, where she will have to play her
way into the fields either through her performance or qualifying.
Burnett qualified for the LPGA Tour in her first attempt in 2012, earning medalist honors in her second
stage qualifier and finishing 25 th in the finals, just outside a top-20 showing needed to have exempt
status for the season. She made her first LPGA start in May in the Kingsmill Championship in Virginia and
tied for 12 th , which helped her earn exempt status for the 2014 season.
Most of Burnett’s success that year came on the LET, where she recorded a pair of ties for fourth in
addition to her second place showing in South Africa, with that event reduced to 18 holes. She was
fourth in a tournament in Morocco and fourth again later in the year in the Czech Republic, finishing
among the top 50 in the tour’s Order of Merit in just nine starts.
Burnett scored her first LPGA top 10 in 2014 in the same event in Hawaii in which she placed second two
years later, tying for eighth, and recorded seven top-20 finishes in 16 LET starts over the 2014 and ’15
seasons.
The 2016 season was Burnett’s most successful as a pro. She tied for fifth early in the year in the LET
Australian Masters, and nearly became the first Georgian to win on the LPGA Tour in more than 20 years
with her career best effort in Hawaii.
Scores of 67 and 66 in the second and third rounds gave Burnett a 1-stroke lead after 54 holes, and she
held up extremely well the final day, posting a 2-under 70, matching her opening score. She held a share
of the lead late in the final round, but after an aggressive 3-putt bogey on the 16 th , had her birdie try for
a tie at the 17 th lip out.
Burnett finished the tournament at 15-under 273, one shot behind Minjee Lee, whose 6-under 30 on the
back nine gave her a final round score of 64.
Later that year, Burnett held the 36-hole lead in the Ladies European Masters, but wound up 20 th after a
poor final round.
Burnett recorded a pair of top-20s on the LPGA Tour last year, with her best finish on the season a tie for
11 th in an LET event in Dubai.
Unlike the vast majority of her contemporaries, Burnett was a late arrival to competitive golf, playing
her first non-scholastic event at the age of 16. By the time she completed her relatively brief stint in
junior golf, Burnett had earned Player of the Year honors on the Georgia PGA Junior Tour and earned a
scholarship to South Carolina, where she was second team All-America as a senior and finished her
career with the lowest scoring average in school history.
In her first start as a pro, Burnett won the Women’s Michigan Open by 10 strokes and soon after
qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open. She had some success in a limited schedule on what is now the
Symetra Tour, and ended the year by qualifying for both the LPGA and LET for the 2013 season.