When Kiara Romero offered up a ticket to Saturday’s final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur to her Oregon head coach Derek Radley, she asked with a grin, “If I’m in the mix, want to come watch me finish second again?”
It was a lighthearted jab at her own frustrating streak of near-misses – five runners-up in her last six tournaments.
It’s not easy being the perpetual bridesmaid, but Romero finds perspective in the quality of her defeats. Just last week at the Charles Schwab Women’s Collegiate, her close friend Anna Davis of Auburn fired a bogey-free 64 at Colonial to edge Romero by a single stroke. Romero closed with a stellar 67 and finished three shots clear of third place.
“It definitely does eat at her,” said Kiara’s older sister Kaleiya, who serves as Oregon’s graduate assistant. “I know she really wants a win, but she has to stay patient. I walked the last five holes at Colonial, and every shot she hit was perfect, but Anna shot 6 under, so what can you do? She’s not losing tournaments; she’s playing well and someone just gets her.”
“Hopefully Saturday will be a different story.”
If Romero is going to break the pattern, she’ll have to outplay the defending champion. After rounds of 67-68, she sits tied for the lead at 9 under with Florida State junior Lottie Woad, who followed an opening 65 with a second-round 70 on Thursday.
Romero was nearly flawless for much of the day, birdieing four of her first 12 holes. But a lengthy wait on the par-4 fourth green disrupted her rhythm, leading to a momentum-threatening double bogey. It was eerily reminiscent of last year’s tournament when she raced to a 4-under start through nine holes in her second round, only to double Nos. 17 and 18 and card a cut-missing 78.
“She made those doubles, and it carried on for like six holes, and she never got it back,” said Romero’s dad, Rick.
“I think I was just kind of pushing too much into the thought of me winning the tournament,” Kiara added.
But Rick notes that Kiara’s mental growth this past year has been remarkable – and it showed Thursday as she shrugged off a bogey on the next hole to birdie each of her final three holes, securing a spot in Saturday’s final pairing.
“I feel like this week I’ve been like the happiest I’ve ever been on the course,” Kiara said. “If you see me last year making a double, I’m definitely not happy. I’m definitely not looking around smiling at anyone. Today was a lot different. I was really proud of myself for the way I handled it.”
Kaleiya deserves some credit for that transformation. The 23-year-old, who played collegiately at Pepperdine, is working toward her Master’s degree in applied behavior. While she plans to turn professional later this year, her long-term goal is becoming a mental performance coach. After Kiara’s double bogey, Kaleiya simply said, “Let it go and move on.”
When Kaleiya first agreed to caddie this week, the plan was for Kiara to switch to a local caddie if she made it to Saturday. Now, Kiara’s hesitant to change what’s working, even though Kaleiya will be seeing Augusta National for the first time during Friday’s practice round.
“Unless I do something wrong tomorrow, I think we’re good,” Kaleiya said.
“There’s no one I’d rather have on her bag than her sister,” Rick added. “She’s going to encourage her, keep her calm, keep it funny; I’ve seen her laugh more this tournament than I’ve ever seen her laugh.”
Woad will stick with her winning caddie from last year, Steve Robinson, England Golf’s performance coach. It was Robinson who delivered a crucial pep talk to Woad after a three-putt bogey at Augusta National’s par-5 13th last year that dropped her two shots behind clubhouse leader Bailey Shoemaker. “Nothing that you can print,” Robinson said when asked what he told her. Whatever it was, it worked – Woad birdied three of her last four holes to win.
Like Romero, Woad has been denied several trophies lately, mainly by Florida State teammate Mirabel Ting, who has won five of six events this season. Still, Woad hasn’t finished worse than third in eight starts this season and hasn’t placed outside the top 10 in a non-pro tournament since the 2023 European Ladies Amateur.
Amy Bond, the Seminoles’ head coach, calls Woad the best player under pressure she’s ever seen. Woad confirms this, saying she rarely feels nervous.
“I had the lead and then lost it,” Woad said of last year’s ANWA win. “Tomorrow if that happens again, then I’d know that I’ve come back from there before.”
Just one shot behind Woad and Romero are Spaniards Carla Bernat of Kansas State and Andrea Revuelta of Stanford, plus Stanford junior Megha Ganne, competing in her fifth ANWA.
Ganne missed the cut in each of her first two appearances, the second ending in tears – captured unfortunately in a photo that haunted her.
“I’d like to say not that long, but it stuck with me for a pretty long time,” said Ganne, who didn’t fully shake that memory until tying for ninth two years ago.
Ganne dreamed Tuesday night that she’d open with a 61, and nearly matched it with a record 9-under 63 on Wednesday. Following that performance was challenging – she bogeyed two of her first four holes Thursday and added two more dropped shots on Nos. 13 and 14.
On the 14th, she caught a break when her ball settled into a bush surrounded by cart path, granting her free relief. Even with a missed short putt, she escaped with just a bogey.
Facing a 30-footer for birdie at the par-5 18th, Ganne called her shot to caddie Brooke Riley, Stanford’s assistant who stepped in last minute after Ganne’s original caddie was injured.
“I don’t abuse the power of saying that that often, but I was like this is definitely going in,” Ganne said. And it did.
Tied for sixth at 7 under is high-school standout Asterisk Talley, who tied for eighth last year after making the cut on the number, and Sweden’s Meja Ortengren, one of six active Stanford players among the 32 competitors who made this year’s cut.
In all, nine players are within five shots of the lead, including USC’s Jasmine Koo and Ohio State’s Kary Hollenbaugh, both four-time winners since last fall and tied for ninth.
“I’m really honored to be up there with those names,” Ganne said. “Lottie, she’s world No. 1 for a reason. The rest of the top of the board looks like the rest of our college tournaments, so this really is a premier event. I think a lot of the big names are coming to the top of the board, which is, I think, really exciting for us players to battle it out on Saturday.”
It’s a leaderboard that could easily relegate Romero to bridesmaid status yet again.
But if Radley is right, if “the big one is coming” for his standout sophomore, what a victory it would be.
