Sara Byrne was in good form at the LET Q-School. Picture: Tristan Jones/LET

Sara Byrne has put her travel problems behind her and recharged her batteries for 2025 when she hopes to win her LPGA Tour card through the second-tier Epson Tour in the US.

The Cork golfer (23) makes her Ladies European Tour debut as a full card holder alongside fellow Q-School graduates Anna Foster and Annabel Wilson in the Lalla Meryem Cup at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, where Lauren Walsh and Olivia Mehaffey are also teeing it up.

She enjoyed practising on the range alongside some of the legends of the men’s game, from Ernie Els and Retief Goosen to Pádraig Harrington, who made sure to introduce himself and arrange to meet the Irish LET players for dinner during the week as he plays the concurrent Trophy Hassan II at the same venue on the PGA Tour Champions.

If she fails to earn the last-minute invitation, a top 10 finish would earn Byrne a spot in next week’s Aramco Series Presented By PIF - Riyadh.

But failing that, she’s looking to hitting the ground running at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam before heading to the US to start her LPGA quest at the Epson Tour’s Central Florida Championship in Orlando from February 28.

“I got my P1 Visa for the US so I can go and play Epson, and thankfully, I got my passport back in time to get here this week,” said Byrne, whose father Derek had to drive to DPD depot in Athlone to retrieve her passport so she could make her trip to Morocco.

“It all worked out in the end, thankfully.”

Whatever happens with Riyadh, Byrne will play the first three Epson Tour events in Florida before the LPGA’s second-tier circuit takes a five-week break.

The Dromolond Castle touring professional is full of beans ahead of her rookie season. Still, she admits she was running on empty at Q-School in Morocco in December after a hectic season that brought her Curtis Cup glory and tour cards on both sides of the pond.

“It was a slog really,” she confessed. “It just kept going on and on and on but obviously, just to get the full card was a great feeling. But I literally ran out of the country of Morocco to get home.

“I had an hour and a half from the time my final putt went in to when I was on the plane home from Marrakesh. I ran out of the place

“I was so mentally and physically fatigued and done for the year. It was such a long year. Obviously, it was a fantastic year. But I was just like, get me home after Q School because Q-Schools are hard.

“They're a different type of golf, playing with such a hard consequence. And after playing them from the end of August to December, it was just a lot. So I was absolutely over the moon, on top of a great year, to get my full European Tour card.”

Sara Byrne in action at the LET Q-School. Picture: Tristan Jones/LET

Byrne is also pleased that she will have company in Europe as Foster and Wilson also earned full cards, and Canice Screene got conditional status.

“It was always going to come,” she said. I’m not surprised that five of us, with Leona and Lauren, have full status on the Ladies European Tour. We all knew this was coming and more players like Beth Coulter and Aine Donegan are coming through college this year.

“It's a great time for Irish women's golf, to be honest. All that hard work over the past decade is showing up now.”

The ILGU and Golf Ireland deserve credit for their work on the women’s game over the past ten years and Byrne admits she wouldn’t be where she is today without the strong women’s circuit in Ireland

“They were sending us to tournaments when we were 14,15, 16, 17; sending us to Europe too,” she explained. “I honestly put it down to our provincial championships being so strong when I was growing up - Munster Championships, Leinster Ladies, the Connacht Girls. Leinster Girls, East Leinster Girls - there was always so much for us to play in and to get picked on teams, we had to play in them all.

“I was 10 playing the Connacht Girls up in Castle Dargan when I started, and I didn't stop. I played everything I could. I played in all the scratch cups up in the north; there was just so much for us to play in. If you wanted to be the best and if you wanted to get picked on the teams, you had to go and play, and I think that was probably what it's down to, to be honest.”

Playing for cash and ranking points doesn’t change Byrne's game, and she has worked hard to prepare for 2025.

But one thing she hasn’t changed is her driver.

“My driver is five years old, but I'm not changing that thing until it breaks on me, really,” she joked.

However, there's always room for improvement, and the Douglas golfer knows what she needs to do.

She works on her mental game with a sports psychologist and has taken steps to improve her short game and become more creative.

“I went to Daniel Grieve in Woburn for a short game lesson, which really helped. I found him great. With my putting, I work on it by myself to get a bit more feel and visualisation into it.”

The goal for 2025 is simple.

“The priority is to try and get my LPGA card for 2026, which means making the top 10 on the order of merit on the Epson Tour.

“I'd love to get a win, wherever it is. That's also a goal. But I can't control that. But again, it's just about learning a lot too. This is my first full year of having full status on tour and not playing with the same consequences as I was playing with at Q-School for the last couple of months. So it's just about learning the ropes of life on tour.”