Bizarre crime sends LPGA hopeful on Target golf shopping spree

Ingrid Lindblad arrived in Venice, Fla. for Q-School in the hopes of adding her name to the LPGA touring roster. Shortly after arriving, though, the 23-year-old Swede found her name somewhere very different.

Police reports. Two of them.

As she addressed the media for the first time from stage 2 of the LPGA’s qualifying series on Friday, it didn’t take long to know it’d been a difficult few days.

“No, I don’t want to bring it up actually,” Lindblad said. “I’ve had quite a week already, to be honest.”

Eventually, after a bit more prodding, she addressed the hellish stretch of bad luck she’d endured that threw everything into flux. It’s a story that begins with a sentence — and a crime — that defies belief.

“So actually, flying over here my suitcase was stolen at the airport,” Lindblad said.

According to Lindblad, the drama started in the Atlanta airport, where she found herself waiting for a connecting flight to Orlando for the weekend’s tournament. While she was waiting to board, she learned that her bag had already begun its trip to Orlando, and would be arriving at the airport before her.

“So we fly in and Delta puts my bag on an earlier flight while I’m sitting in Atlanta, which is ridiculous because it only gets there one hour earlier,” Lindblad said. “As soon as I land at Orlando airport my AirTag is leaving the airport.”

After a few confusing minutes, Lindblad pieced together that her bag had been stolen just days before a tournament that could decide her golfing future. Rather than head to the golf course, she called the police, and had a pair of reports written up documenting the situation and the lost items.

“So I started the week with filing two police reports. We met up with the police where the AirTag was last seen,” she said. “That’s how my week started.”

But it didn’t take long after the police station for Lindblad to realize her second issue: she didn’t have any clothes. So from the police station it was off to Target, where the former U.S. Women’s Open Low-Am winner spent a few hours on a pre-tournament shopping spree.

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“I just got back from Target. Shopped for clothes for like $250,” she said. “I had to buy golf clothes, like everything. So it’s been quite a week already.”

Fortunately, this bizarre story has at least a partially happy ending. Lindblad played lights out in her Target golf gear in stage 2 of LPGA Q-School, winning the event by five strokes to advance on to the third and final qualifying stage, which will be held next month in Mobile, Ala.

“I feel like I went out today and I didn’t have a lot of swing thoughts,” Lindblad said. “My assistant coach, Alexis Rather, she said ‘just keep your feet where you are. Don’t try to be somewhere else.’ I texted her after the round and I said, ‘Hey, my feet were on the ground in Venice today.'”

Even if her suitcase wasn’t.