Northwestern University Athletics
ALUMNI UPDATE: Lipsky Wins Asian Tour Order of Merit
12/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern graduate David Lipsky was crowned the 2014 Asian Tour Order of Merit champion Sunday following the Thailand Golf Championship when his closest competitor was mathematically eliminated with one event remaining on the schedule.
Lipsky has earned $713,901 this season to outpace Anirban Lahiri in second with $602,833. Lahiri needed a top-4 finish at the Thailand Championship to extend the competition to next week's Dubai Open; he finished in sixth while Lipsky registered a 38th-place result to cement his status atop the Order of Merit.
"This win means a lot to me," Lipsky said. "This is something which I aspired to do. Winning a co-sanctioned event and doing all this in one year is something which was unexpected because I did it so fast, but now I know that if I play well, I can compete against the best."
Lipsky, the 2010 Big Ten Champion while with the Wildcats, is in his third year on the Asian Tour and secured his European Tour card for next year by winning the co-sanctioned Omega European Masters in September. With his win in the Order of Merit, Lipsky also has secured invitations to the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews and the WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral, tweeted NU Director of Golf and Player Development Pat Goss, who still serves as Lipsky's short game coach.
Meanwhile, another recent Northwestern alum also found success overseas this year. 2012 graduate Sam Chien finished fourth in the PGA TOUR China Order of Merit this season to secure his Web.com Tour card for 2015.
At the season-opening Buick Open, Sam Chien shot four under-par rounds, led at the close of each day and remained a presence near the top of the Order of Merit for the remainder of the season. Although he couldn't win the Nine Dragons Open in November, finishing second to Cheng Jin, Chien took home first-place money as the top-finishing professional, giving him two ￥216,000 paydays this season. He also added top-10s in two other tournaments and began his season with 10 consecutive under-par rounds.
Beginning in 2013, the Web.com Tour became The Path to the PGA TOUR by awarding all 50 available TOUR cards to Web.com Tour players for the following PGA TOUR Season. Players can initially qualify for the Web.com Tour through the National Qualifying Tournament and by securing top-five Order of Merit finishes on PGA TOUR China, PGA TOUR Latinoamerica and PGA TOUR Canada.
Information from pgatour.com and asiantour.com was used in this release.
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