HOUSTON – Everyone expects Kiara Romero to be a star whenever she joins the LPGA. You can see why on Thursday, just not when you expect.
The world number 1 amateur went out in the first round of the Chevron Championship and immediately rose up the leaderboard at Memorial Park. The 20-year-old Oregon Duck birdied the 3-under and then bogeyed her third shot on the par-5 14th to five feet for another birdie to take an early lead. of buzz about the first major of the year began to build as Romero’s name climbed the leaderboard. The idea of ​​the future coming ahead of schedule has a weight of its own; there is a unique electricity created by the potential of the world. Romero is no stranger to feuds. She wins LOT at the collegiate level. She won the US Girls Junior and played in the final round of 2025 Augusta Women’s National Amateur.
This is the scene she was apparently made for. Not because of her pristine iron game, her reliable shot or her length. But because of what happened when her rise to the top of the Chevron Championship stalled.
On the par-3 15th, Romero’s shot missed the green and went wide. She jumped but missed the first shot. Next came the long par-5 15th. Romero gave the putt a streak, leaving him with just over 200 yards with a helping wind. With her father, Rick, watching from the ropes, Romero got ready to hit the green. She stood on the ball, looked at her target, and then repositioned her body, something she hadn’t done all round. It was a moment of uncertainty, one that Team Romero noticed, and it ended with Romero hanging her approach to the right and into the water.
Despite leaking oil in a major championship, Romero was never intimidated. He never lost his head. Her father would say that there is no need for “wasted energy”. If you hadn’t seen her ball land in the middle of the pond, you’d have no idea that things must be moving fast for the 20-year-old. Romero marched calmly, as if nothing had changed over the last two holes. She turned 16 and then retired her ball to 17. Her ball was placed under a tree, but her behavior never changed. Romero held her own, got through her process and stopped the bleeding with a par on 17. She missed a 6-footer for the par on 18 to finish at 1 under, but ended her stay still oozing with confidence.
“I feel like I know my game has been good all day,” Romero said of her ability to reset and stay in the moment. “It’s not like one shot is going to change that. I think the back nine is definitely harder than the front, so I think just kind of battling that and kind of going through like the same swing, same game plan, same mentality, is really important.”
Margins are very slim at the pro level. The difference between collecting winnings and grinding for your card can be infinitesimally small. But almost all great players share something in common – an implacable calmness that allows them to stop things from getting out of hand. Their focus is always on the next swing, not what they just did.
Romero has prepared for these moments. Every collegiate tournament she wins, every LPGA start she makes as an amateur is a building block on the road to where her game suggests she will one day be.
Perhaps none was bigger than last summer’s weekend at Women’s US Open at Erin Hills. Romero made the cut in Wisconsin and then won the US Open in the third round, when she shot a 12-over 84, which included a quadruple bogey, to fall short. It was a hard hit for a player not used to making deep cuts on the golf course. But Romero was undeterred and she came back in the final round and shot a 5-under 67, the lowest final round by an amateur in US Women’s Open history. Persistence and confidence are points for him.
“I think the biggest thing I learned from that tournament was just knowing that I can bounce back from anything,” Romero said of that Sunday at Erin Hills. “I think the third round was definitely my worst in the past, maybe ten years. But the next day, I broke the record.
“So just knowing that there can be a huge range of success, and like your game can go from the worst one day to the best the next, and that’s really what golf is. So it doesn’t like to define you if you have a bad day or not.”
Romero will be here one day soon.
She has already accumulated 14 LEAP points for the LPGA’s top amateur path to earning a card. She is six points shy of the 20-point mark that will earn her LPGA status. A cut this week will earn her another point. A top-25 finish will earn her two more points. It’s a matter of when, not if, Romero regularly competes against the best in the world.
But she already looks and feels like she belongs.
“Just being out here and knowing the experience and kind of knowing what it’s going to be like and knowing the pressures of playing with some of the best players in the world and playing in front of a crowd and playing on TV, all those things, just knowing what’s ahead and what’s going to be out there, I think it’s definitely a lot more comfortable for me,” she said.
Romero finished her round by bogeying three of her last four holes. For many, this means a quick trip to the range to find an antidote for that missed a great round. To him, that meant nothing. Her rocking told him she was fine. She plays an imperfect game and is willing to admit that, for all her talent, she will make mistakes. She knows better than to waste her energy on what has already happened.
The only thing that matters is what’s after, what’s before it. If Thursday was any indication, what awaits is everything.
