BETHESDA, Md.—Stacy Lewis got her professional career off to an amazing start.

Now she gets to start over.

In a policy that no longer makes sense, Lewis will not get credit for her tie for third in the U.S. Women’s Open as she tries to earn enough money to get her LPGA Tour card without going to Q-school.

“The only thing that could have helped me was to win,” Lewis said at Interlachen, where she had a one-shot lead going into the final round and closed with a 78 to finish five shots behind Inbee Park.

Lewis earned $162,487, which would have been enough to finish the year equal to 80th on the LPGA Tour money list. She is playing in the Northwest Arkansas Championship this week, one of a maximum six events she can play to earn enough money.

She also will play the Jamie Farr Classic next week, and on Tuesday received a sponsor’s exemption to the LPGA Kapalua Classic on Maui. Her agent, Jeff Chilcoat, said he is working on three other tournaments.

“I think it should be revisited,” he said of the policy. “And frankly, I’d love to have it revisited retroactively. But I don’t anticipate it being changed for her.”

Starting in 2003, the LPGA expanded the maximum number of sponsor exemptions for non-members from four to six tournaments, and counted only domestic tournaments with at least 75 players in the field toward the money list. The U.S. Women’s Open didn’t count, because it is not co-sponsored by the LPGA.

The policy favors rank-and-file LPGA members, noting that non-members who want to earn a card without going to Q-school should have to compete in fields comprised almost entirely of LPGA members.

The fear was that someone could have one big week at the richest event in women’s golf and get a card, for prize money at the Women’s Open used to dwarf everything else. While the Women’s Open purse of $3.1 million remains the largest, there are a dozen other LPGA events with at least $2 million in prize money.

Lewis doesn’t fit the profile of a fluke.

She has a trophy from the Northwest Arkansas Championship, where she shot 65 last year before the tournament was washed out by rain and erased from the records. She tied for fifth in the Kraft Nabisco Championship last year as a junior at Arkansas, where she later won an NCAA title.

Now, she can only hope three more tournaments have room for her to compete.