BELLEAIR, Fla. – Kai Trump finished her LPGA debut with a flourish, finding the 18th green with a confident 3-wood for the second straight day at The Annika.
The 18-year-old couldn’t convert her 8-foot downhill birdie putt that would’ve energized the 500-person gallery surrounding Pelican Golf Club’s clubhouse. Still, her stress-free par capped a 5-over 75 – eight shots better than her opening-round 83 and matching the second-round score of her playing partner, former major champion Hinako Shibuno.
At 18 over, Trump will miss the cut and finish last in the 108-player field, but her performance exceeded expectations. One sportsbook set her over/under for the first round at 92.5.
“That’s really good, considering this is not just an easy LPGA event, this is probably one of the harder courses that we play on,” said Charley Hull, who played three groups ahead. “She had to be so nervous. It was her first LPGA event – I remember my first event I was really nervous – and she’s got a lot of pressure on her and a lot of eyes on her.”
Trump’s Friday morning warmup showed a dramatic shift from Thursday’s tension. She was her usual upbeat, chatty self as she prepared for her 8:17 a.m. tee time. The nerves were still there but noticeably less intense.
The improvement showed immediately. After playing the first two holes 3-over on Thursday, she narrowly missed a 10-foot birdie on the first hole Friday and drained a 12-foot par save at the second. When she stuffed her tee shot to 6 feet at the par-3 third and rolled in her first LPGA birdie, she was 1-under for the day.
A potential disaster loomed at the par-4 fifth, where Trump tripled after hitting a tree with her approach and blading her third shot over the green. But after tapping in for seven, she turned to her caddie, friend Allan Kournikova, and laughed.
“It is what it is,” Trump recalled telling him. “We got that out of the way, so let’s just move on. It was pretty easy to move on after that.”
She nearly birdied the sixth, then converted an 8-footer for birdie at the par-5 seventh to turn in 3-over 38.
As temperatures – and Trump’s game – warmed up, the gallery grew in time to see her birdie Nos. 11 and 12. The latter was a tap-in after her 8-iron from 140 yards nearly found the hole for what would’ve been her first ace – and won her a two-year lease on a Lamborghini Urus.
“I hit like a tight little draw into it, tried not to get too high because of the wind,” said Trump, whose tee shot burned the high edge. “Yeah, it was a great shot.”
Kournikova added: “She said that in the beginning of the week, she’s like, ‘I’m keeping the Lambo,’ and then she’s like, ‘No, you can have it.'”
A double bogey at the par-3 15th and a chunked wedge that led to bogey at 17 balanced out her four total birdies – just one fewer than her playing competitors Shibuno and Olivia Cowan combined.
“The first day, I was definitely really nervous,” Trump said. “I think the nerves just got to me. 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.”
Jim Garren, Trump’s future assistant coach at Miami, noted: “I hope she realizes that the physical skills and ball-striking are where they need to be to continue progressing in the game. She got to witness firsthand how the best in the world do it; no better teaching moment than that.”
Cowan, who first met Trump at the 2023 Aramco Team Series event at Trump International in West Palm Beach, was impressed.
“Her demeanor was very good, how she kept it all together,” Cowan said, adding that playing in front of dozens of Secret Service and police officers was “a little strange.”
“It was not a normal thing,” she continued. “I’ve played with crowds before, so it’s not new, but I guess they were all very focused on her, so as soon as she finished [hitting], they were moving, but we only had to tell them a few times to stop.”
Trump’s tournament experience is minimal compared to other Division I-bound players. While elite juniors like Asterisk Talley and Gianna Clemente might play two dozen events annually, Trump’s competitive resume is much shorter. She spoke at last year’s Republican National Convention and was visible on the campaign trail, but this year she’s had more time to focus on golf.
This week showed glimpses of the potential that Miami coaches Garren and Janice Olivencia saw when recruiting her. Trump is still outside the top 1,200 in Junior Golf Scoreboard’s rankings, but her trajectory is promising.
“As far as talent goes, she’s got as much talent as anyone; I think it’s raw, it’s raw talent,” Kournikova said. “I told her when we were walking off the green, I said, ‘Could you imagine if you did this every week, just how comfortable you’d be?’ These girls come here, it’s like a 9 to 5 for them. They’re clocking in, they show up, they play, they leave – 20 weeks a year they’re doing this? This is our first time, and she’s not used to this.”
He added: “She was definitely a lot more prepared to play today. We still could have saved another three, four shots out there, just a little sloppy stuff here and there, but I’m really excited to see what’s ahead, because if she wants to pursue a career in this game, she can play at the highest level, in my opinion.”
When Trump finished, host Annika Sorenstam was waiting off the 18th green and gave her a big hug. Trump then embraced her mother Vanessa and several team members before signing her scorecard. After answering reporters’ questions and signing autographs, she was off, having made an impression few expected.
“I did everything I could possibly have done for this tournament,” Trump said.
And she’s clearly inspired to do even more.
