Trump went back and forth over the green on the par-4 fifth hole at the Pelican Golf Club and recorded a triple-bogey, but she didn’t let the moment ruin her day
Kai Trump’s most embarrassing moment of her LPGA Tour debut didn’t shake her resolve on Friday(Image: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
Kai Trump ended her first LPGA Tour event Friday with her chin held high despite a last-place finish and an 18-over par score next to her name on the leaderboard, laughing off one particularly embarrassing moment from her second round at The Annika.
Trump, who played the LPGA Tour event on a sponsor exemption, won’t be playing this weekend as the field is cut down. Her disastrous score on Thursday showed just how much the youngster has to learn before truly competing at the highest levels of the sport.
Yet the 18-year-old didn’t let the bad moments ruin her experience at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida, as she was able to see the funny side in her worst hole of the tournament.
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After parring her opening two holes and recording her first LPGA Tour birdie on the third, Trump took a bogey on four, then temporarily blew up on the par-4 fifth.
Her drive found the right side of the fairway, but her approach attempt struck a tree and shot straight down. She then bladed her next swing over the green, taking a drop in the pine straw on the far side of a cartpath, only to hit back over the green again.
Trump shot a 75 on Friday, ending her tournament 18-over par(Image: Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
Her next chip came short of the green before she finally pulled out the flatstick from off the putting surface, two-putting her way in for a triple-bogey.
“Yeah, I mean, things like that are going to happen, and once it happens you can’t go back and time and fix it,” Trump said after the round. “I think the best thing I could have possibly done was just move on.”
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While it was her worst hole over two days, Trump said all she could do was laugh.
“To my caddie, Allan [Kournikova], I kind of just started laughing,” Trump said. “I was like, ‘all right, it is what it is, we got that out of the way, now let’s just move on.’ So it was pretty easy to move on.”
Trump did in fact move on fairly well. She made a par on the par-4 sixth and a birdie on the par-5 seventh to bounce back nicely, eventually finishing the front nine 3-over after a 7-over mark on the same holes Thursday.
She improved her play on the back nine as well, finishing the day with a 5-over 75 and making four birdies total after recording none a day earlier.
“Yeah, for the first day I was definitely really nervous. I think the nerves just got to me,” Trump said. “When I went out there today I felt very calm and peaceful to be honest with you.
“And, yeah, that’s why I played better.”
