The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the trajectory of so many all around the world.

But for Canadian golfer Maude Aimee Leblanc, the time she had to refocus on her life’s goals in mid 2020 has resulted in a positive – returning to the LPGA Tour this season.

In her first tournament action since ending her retirement, she  finished T8 at the Gain Bridge LPGA at Boca Rio.

Leblanc, of Sherbrooke, Quebec, retired from professional golf in 2019 after a disappointing season on the Symetra Tour – the feeder circuit to the LPGA Tour.

However, the following summer (after Leblanc left her clubs to collect dust) she was watching golf on TV and started to miss the game again.

“In the middle of the summer, when golf started back again on the PGA and LPGA Tours and I started watching it on TV, that’s what made me miss it a little bit,” says Leblanc. “I started thinking about things I still wanted to accomplish as a professional golfer.

“I still believe that I had the ability to achieve those goals. That’s what brought me back.”

Since the Symetra Tour saw a lengthy delay to its 2020 season, Leblanc didn’t actually lose her status there and was able to kickstart her career again.

“Taking a year off in 2020… that definitely gave me a different perspective on the game, and I feel like I balance my life a lot better now, and in a healthy way,” says Leblanc. “Golf is not such an obsession anymore. I see it like a job. When I’m off the course I don’t think about it.”

Leblanc was a celebrated amateur – even a part of Purdue University’s 2010 NCAA championship team – and part of the National Team program. She turned professional in 2012 but spent the last decade bouncing between the Symetra and LPGA Tours.

This past season, however, Leblanc’s whole game came together unlike any other time in her career.

She had a laser-like focus on improving her putting (thanks to her coach, Sal Spallone, who she started working with in 2020) and ended up ninth in Putting Average on the Symetra Tour in 2021 – a jump from 61st in 2019.

“The biggest thing that changed was my putting. Everything else was pretty much the same. My putting was what was holding me back. It was holding me back since I turned pro in 2012,” admits Leblanc. “(My coach) basically changed my entire setup on my putting and it’s made all the difference.”

Leblanc has always been a proficient driver of the golf ball. She was fifth on the Symetra Tour in driving distance in 2021 (at just over 285 yards per pop) and the combination of solid long and short games saw her finish sixth on the Symetra Tour’s money list last year.

That meant Leblanc, just a year after retiring from the game entirely, had re-earned LPGA Tour status.

And despite the last two years being incredibly uncertain for so many, this particular Canadian is thrilled at the chance to get back to doing what she does best – compete with the best golfers in the world.

“Playing on the Symetra Tour makes you appreciate the LPGA even more,” says Leblanc. “I’m going to be a lot more grateful than I used to be.”