Ana Belac came through her first 36-hole US Women's Open qualifier in five professional seasons on Wednesday, firing rounds of 69 and 65 at Wilderness Country Club in Naples, Florida to claim medalist honours and a tee time at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles for the second major of the LPGA season.
The 29-year-old Slovenian, a Duke University graduate who turned professional in the spring of 2020, had walked onto the property without much in the way of expectations. She walked off it at six under, comfortably clear of the field, and, by her own admission, slightly stunned.
"I didn't have a whole lot of expectations, cause I've never made it through a qualifier," Belac said after the round. "But I was able to stick to my own game, and had some experience in the LPGA Tour for five years."
The scorecard told the story of a player who turned a steady opening 69 into a closing 65 by leaning on her short game on a course famously slow to give up scores. Belac said she had set up the round with her wedges and finished it with the putter.
"I feel I was really solid with my wedges," she said. "I felt if I drove it well, I could set up my wedges. My putter got hot, so I was able to take advantage of opportunities to score. Today was a good reset, and I felt good things could happen out there if I just relaxed and played my game."
Belac arrives at Riviera as a player whose LPGA Tour career has been long on competitive starts and short on signature results. Two career top-10 finishes and a most recent T42 at the Riviera Maya Open at Mayakoba in mid-April have not yet translated to the kind of major paycheque a US Women's Open invite carries. That changes this month. The 2026 US Women's Open runs May 28 to 31 at Riviera Country Club, the most coveted venue in the women's game's expanding rotation, and Belac will tee it up for the first time as a fully exempt qualifier rather than a hopeful.
The Naples sectional itself produced one of the more eye-catching subplots of the qualifier circuit. Eleven-year-old Madelyn Dickerson, the youngest player in the Wilderness field, finished in the upper half of the table after stating before the round that her ambition was simply to break 80 twice.
"It's a really long course out here," Dickerson said. "My goal was to get two rounds in the 70s. My putter was hot, which I was thankful for, cause the greens here are tricky and very grainy."
Belac's own back catalogue, with wins on the Symetra Tour at the Carolina Golf Classic and the Volvik Race For The Card during her 2020 to 2021 promotion run, suggested the medalist pedigree had always been there. The Naples result is what happens when a player who has spent half a decade banging out cuts on the LPGA finally puts a clean two-day card together at the right time. The next test is Riviera, and a full LPGA major field that includes Nelly Korda, Lydia Ko and the rest of the world's top ten.