A couple of months ago, Megha Ganne, the 2025 US women’s amateur champion and a decorated college player, surprisingly missed the cut in Augusta Women’s National Amateur. And how did she get it?
She called it cute.
Let him explain.
“ANWA was cool for me because I haven’t played that bad in a big event in a long time, so I think there’s always been a little pocket of my head, What happens when you don’t play well in a really big tournament?” she said Monday at the US Women’s Open, her first start as a professional.
She seems to already think and speak like a professional.
“Maybe not fear is the right word, but just curiosity about what it would look like and how it would affect me,” she continued, when asked how she stays safe when things don’t go her way. “At ANWA I learned the answer and the answer is absolutely nothing. Life goes on. Then you wake up the next day and go to practice. So I think just knowing that there are so many opportunities, so many opportunities to prove yourself is the main thing I learned.”
This next opportunity is this week, at 81st US Women’s Open at the Riviera in Pacific Palisades, California, and Ganne enters with a bang. Last week, she helped her Stanford women’s golf team win the NCAA championshipthird win in the last five years. Ganne finished second in the game in hitting and then went undefeated in match play, even reaching the title-winning point in the final against USC.
That took a turn for the better in her senior year at Stanford, where over the years she continued to develop into one of the top amateur players in the country.
Now, as a pro — she finished atop the LPGA’s LCAP rankings, which means she has full Epson Tour status — she has new goals, like “just getting comfortable being uncomfortable” as she gets used to tour life.
This will be Ganne’s fourth major start – and third US Women’s Open – and she is five years removed from her first, where for much of the week she was the talk of the tournament. As a 17-year-old, she held a share of the lead in the first roundtied for 3rd after 54 holes and eventually finished 14th at the 2021 US Women’s Open at The Olympic Club.
She’s been playing pro events ever since, but for amateurs playing with pros, it can all seem so new, she said. Now that’s a job.
“When you go on tour with just one exception or just one time, you spend so much time getting used to things that feel a little different, you don’t think you can possibly settle into your routines,” she said. “So I’m excited to build those new routines and see what they look like.”
