As soon as a junior-golf phenom, Alexa Pano’s persistence is paying off

CHASKA, Minn. — A humorous factor occurred Thursday. Not just like the ha-ha humorous or the slap-your-leg roaring laughter type of humorous, however the ironic variety.

I arrived on the KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine Nationwide on Thursday morning with a free plan to put in writing up a few names. However golf isn’t predictable. (See Keith Mitchell’s 41-29 ultimately week’s U.S. Open.)

One factor I did have deliberate, nonetheless, was to look at Alexa Pano. She’s 21 and already in her fourth full season on the LPGA Tour. She hits it far (273.4 yards on common) and has already gained as soon as, on the ISPS Handa World Invitational again in August 2023 (she gained the identical day she turned 19).

However I largely needed to look at and meet up with Alexa as a result of seven years in the past I spent a major period of time speaking to her, her dad, her swing coach and others for a 2,000-word profile forward of the inaugural Augusta Nationwide Ladies’s Novice, the place she, simply 14 on the time, was about to be the occasion’s youngest competitor. I frolicked on the golf course with them, too, when Alexa was enjoying an informal spherical with pal Tommy Morrison. (Tommy, who simply accomplished his senior yr on the Texas males’s golf workforce, has since sprouted to 6-feet, 9-inches tall. Man, time flies.) I requested one million questions, together with one questioning if Alexa didn’t like the truth that Amazon Alexa, which was new on the time, had stolen her identify. I feel Alexa, the particular person, thought the query was bizarre.

Though within the time since, I had not seen Pano play golf, at the least not in particular person. In order that was the plan on Thursday: watch a number of holes, perhaps say hiya after which go on with my day.

However seems the primary time I bought an opportunity to speak to Alexa, she was behind the dais, taking questions from the media (myself included) as Golf Channel cameras rolled and photographers snapped footage.

She had simply shot a clean five-under 67 and took the clubhouse lead of the LPGA’s third main of the season. That lead didn’t maintain — Ina Yoon swooped in and shot 63 about an hour later — however Pano heads into Friday in prime place. She’s T3 and the low American after Day 1.

“Hitting it straight is an important factor on this golf course,” she stated. “It makes it much more accessible from the golf green. The tough may be very patchy and has some actually thick spots. The extra you retain the ball on the golf green the higher.”

All grown up!

A embellished junior participant, Pano landed on golf followers’ radar when she starred within the 2013 Netflix documentary The Short Game, which chronicled the 2012 U.S. Children Golf World Championships in Pinehurst, N.C. Pano was 7 on the time. Since then Alexa and her dad, Rick, have traveled tens of hundreds of miles a yr teeing it up in high-level junior tournaments.

She competed within the Drive, Chip and Putt at Augusta Nationwide thrice and was the youngest participant within the 2019 U.S. Ladies’s Open. She performed in Junior Solheim Cups and Junior Ryder Cups earlier than turning professional at 17 in 2022.

She performed a yr on the Epson Tour earlier than incomes her LPGA card by way of LPGA Q-Sequence and earned LPGA membership for the 2023 season. She’s been on the large tour since, though she’s needed to be taught classes alongside the best way. Like persistence.

“You lose much more than you win out right here and that’s type of a change from like junior golf and even beginner golf,” Pano stated Thursday. “You’re not on the high of the leaderboard as a lot as you assume try to be. You actually should belief the method and simply preserve placing within the work. But it surely’s price it for days like at the moment the place it pays off or weeks the place it pays off.”

Pano had an early tee time Thursday and turned in even par, however she moved to 2 beneath when she holed out from 69 yards away for eagle on the eleventh. Because the ball landed and rolled, Pano yelled go whereas her caddie, Kyle Alexander, advised it to sit. Pano normally has her dad on the bag however he’s been out the final couple of weeks. He watched from outdoors the ropes on Thursday.

“Have you learnt who Wally Pipp is?” he requested me, smiling.

She torched the again 9 from there: birdies on 14, 16 and 17, and even a simple two-putt par on 18 after her drive discovered the golf green bunker.

“Felt like I put myself in some actually good positions on the market, whether or not it was off the tee or simply enjoying it slightly protected on the greens and type of hit all my marks,” she stated. “General a very strong day.”

That is her thirteenth main begin as an expert, and her lone high 10 was on the 2024 Ladies’s British Open. However now comes the onerous half — staying in rivalry. Golf tournaments, and particularly main championships, are all about staying within the combine for 72 holes. Thursdays are sometimes about not capturing your self out of it. To date so good.

“I feel the extra expertise you get the higher,” she stated. “I feel the extra that I play in these occasions the extra comfy I get. However I can undoubtedly bear in mind being a junior golfer and qualifying for like U.S. Opens and such. The event felt a lot greater than me. Now it’s type of like have a bit higher grasp on it and really feel much more comfy.”

You possibly can attain the creator at joshua.berhow@golf.com.