Field Breakdown: 2026 Heritage Classic (Tour Championship)
Wichita, Kansas — The ANNIKA Women's All Pro Tour closes out its 2026 season at the Heritage Classic Tour Championship, September 10–13 at Rolling Hills Country Club, known as the birthplace of the LPGA. A field of 130 will play for a share of the $125,000 purse, the largest of the season, with $20,000 going to the winner. Points earned this week carry a 30 percent premium over a regular-season event, and the top two finishers will earn an exemption into the Epson Tour's Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout in El Dorado, Arkansas on September 14.
With the premium points on the line and the season on the line with it, this week is the last chance for players to move into the top five of the Callaway Race to Qualifying or crack the ANNIKA 20 pres. Southern Company altogether. Here's a deeper look at players on both ends of that equation.
Chasing No. 1 overall
Katie Lu
Katie Lu arrives in Wichita as the tour's points leader, and her season has the resume to match. The Michigan State graduate and 2022 New Jersey Women's Amateur champion broke through for her first professional win at the Coke Dr Pepper Open in April, running away with the title at 20-under with just four bogeys over 54 holes. She carried that momentum well beyond the WAPT, taking the first-round lead at her home-state New Jersey Women's Open this summer and crediting the WAPT win with giving her the confidence to compete at every level. "Professional golf has definitely been an adjustment after college golf," Lu said, "but winning on the ANNIKA Tour was a big confidence booster." With the Tour Championship's 30 percent point premium in play, the margin at the top is anything but safe, and Lu will be looking to close out the season the way she's largely played it all year, from the front.
Emma Bunch
Few stories on tour this year compare to Emma Bunch's. The Denmark native, out of Lynge, was a decorated standout at New Mexico State. She was a two-time ANNIKA Award watch list honoree with nine college wins, but visa delays tied to her Danish citizenship kept her an amateur for weeks after graduation. Rather than sit out, Bunch played anyway, winning the St. Louis Women's Championship and the Children's Hospital of Illinois Championship back-to-back as an amateur, and had to forfeit roughly $20,000 in combined prize money because her status wouldn't allow her to accept it. Once her visa cleared, Bunch turned pro and barely slowed down, winning the Colorado Championship at Todd Creek in a five-hole playoff over Tiffany Le for her third title in just four professional starts. That kind of scoring rate means Bunch is very much live to finish atop the standings with one more big week at Rolling Hills, where the premium points could turn a small sample size into a season-long payoff.
Kate Villegas
Kate Villegas's breakthrough season has been a long time coming. The Arcadia, California, product transferred to UCLA after two All-Big West seasons at UC Riverside, then capped her amateur career with a 2023 California Women's Amateur title and a runner-up finish at the U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball. Her first professional win didn't come until July, but it was a statement: a wire-to-wire victory at the inaugural Wisconsin Women's Championship, closing 66-70-69 for an 11-under total that jumped her to third in points, just 78 back of the lead at the time. Villegas enters the finale still third, well within range of the top spot depending on how the week unfolds, and will be looking to finish the year exactly the way a Tour Championship is designed to reward, with one more big week.
Maisie Filler
Maisie Filler's rise has been building for years. The Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, product, who grew up in Bloomfield, Connecticut, before moving south at 16, reached No. 1 in the NCAA rankings during her senior season at Florida, won three straight stroke-play events to become just the eighth Gator to ever do that, and capped her amateur days with a Round of 16 run at the U.S. Women's Amateur and a start in the U.S. Women's Open. Her first professional win came at the Taco Bell Natchez Classic, where she opened with a 6-under 66 and never let go. She's been just as sharp lately against tougher fields, following a top-10 finish at the Epson Tour's Hartford HealthCare Women's Championship with a T-23 at the Smoky Mountain Championship. Filler rounds out the group of players with a realistic shot at finishing No. 1 overall, currently sitting fifth in points, and brings some of the best form in the field into Rolling Hills.
Outside the top-20 looking in
LoraLie Cowart
LoraLie Cowart has been agonizingly close to breaking through all year. The Douglasville, Georgia, product played three seasons at Georgia before transferring to Georgia Southern, where she was named Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year and First Team All-Sun Belt in her final season, a career that also includes three runner-up finishes at the Georgia Women's Amateur. Her best WAPT result of the year came at the Wisconsin Women's Championship, where she finished runner-up to Kate Villegas, four shots back. Cowart sits just outside the Callaway Race to Qualifying's top 20 heading into Wichita, and with premium points on the table in the season's last event, she's right there to finally make the jump.
Yeji Kwon
Yeji Kwon knows what it takes to win on this tour. The Manitoba, Canada, native broke through in 2024 with five top-10 finishes, including a victory at the Genesis of Conway Central Arkansas Open, results strong enough to earn her a promotion to the Epson Tour for the 2025 season, where she made 18 starts and posted a season-best tie for 37th at the Carlisle Arizona Women's Golf Classic. Back on the WAPT this year, Kwon sits just behind Cowart in the standings, and her track record suggests she has more than enough game to climb into the top 20 with one strong week to close out the year at Rolling Hills.
Caroline Smith
Caroline Smith has the furthest to climb of the group, but she also has the kind of resume that makes a big week believable. The Inverness/Barrington, Illinois, product won the Kentucky Women's Open as an amateur at Wake Forest before transferring to Indiana, where she closed out her college career as a WGCA All-American Scholar, Big Ten Distinguished Scholar and Big Ten Sportsmanship honoree while posting the lowest stroke average in p rogram history. Smith turned pro in 2025 and is still building her professional resume; the Tour Championship's point premium means no gap is entirely out of reach in a single week, and a big finish at Rolling Hills would be exactly the kind of result needed to make a late run up the final standings.
Below is a breakdown of the week's field:
The week's field is made up of 130 players from 18 countries.
The breakdown of the players per country in the field, counted by the flag shown next to each name rather than hometown: United States (97), Canada (8), Mexico (4), England (2), Finland (2), India (2), Indonesia (2), Thailand (2), Australia (1), China (1), Czech Republic (1), Denmark (1), Hong Kong (1), Netherlands (1), Paraguay (1), Peru (1), Scotland (1), South Korea (1), Spain (1).
Travis Humphrey
ANNIKA WAPT Media & Communications
