{"id":54595,"date":"2025-11-15T15:46:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T15:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/54595\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T15:46:24","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T15:46:24","slug":"kai-trump-improves-by-8-strokes-but-misses-cut-at-lpga-annika-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/54595\/","title":{"rendered":"Kai Trump improves by 8 strokes but misses cut at LPGA Annika event"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kai Trump, a high school senior playing in an LPGA Tour event for reasons beyond her ability to hit a golf ball, went from \u201cdefinitely really nervous\u201d in the first round Thursday to \u201cvery calm and peaceful\u201d Friday in the second. <\/p>\n

All in all, an impressive improvement. <\/p>\n

Still, Trump, 18, didn\u2019t make the cut, not after finishing last among 108 players with a two-round total of 18-over par, 27 shots behind leader Grace Kim and 17 away from the projected cut line. The granddaughter of President Trump improved eight strokes to a 75 in the second round of the tournament hosted by Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla. <\/p>\n

How dramatic was the upgrade? Trump had nine bogeys, two doubles and one birdie Thursday. A day later she was briefly under par when she birdied the par-three third hole, but she bogeyed the fourth and triple-bogeyed the par-four fifth hole. <\/p>\n

Trump rebounded to birdie three of her next six holes. How relaxed was she? She literally laughed off her triple bogey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are going to happen,\u201d she said. \u201cOnce it happens, you can\u2019t go back in time and fix it. The best thing I could do is move on. Like, I told my caddie, Allan [Kournikova], kind of just started laughing, \u2018it is what it is.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe got that out of the way, so let\u2019s just move on. It was pretty easy to move on after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially on the par-three 12th where she nearly made the first hole-in-one of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hit like a tight little draw into it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cTried not to get too high because of the wind. Yeah, it was a great shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also displayed a nice touch on her approach shot on 18, just as she did Thursday.
Asked what she would tell her grandfather about the round, she said: \u201cThat I hit a great shot on 18 two days in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI did everything I could possibly have done for this tournament, so I think if you prepare right, the nerves can \u2026 they\u2019re always going to be there, right?,\u201d she said. \u201cThey can be a little softened. So I would just say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics among and beyond her nearly 9 million social media followers were relentless in noting her obvious privilege for securing a sponsor invitation<\/a>. Dan Doyle Jr., owner of Pelican Golf Club, cheerfully acknowledged that Trump\u2019s inclusion had little to do with ability and a lot to do with public relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of the exemption, when you go into the history of exemptions, is to bring attention to an event,\u201d Doyle told reporters this week. \u201cYou got to see her live, she\u2019s lovely to speak to.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she\u2019s brought a lot of viewers through Instagram, and things like that, who normally don\u2019t watch women\u2019s golf. That was the hope. And we\u2019re seeing that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump attends the Benjamin School in Palm Beach and will attend the University of Miami next year. She is ranked No. 461 by the American Junior Golf Assn. <\/p>\n

Stepping up to the LPGA, complete with a deep gallery of onlookers and a phalanx of Secret Service agents surrounding her, could have been daunting. Trump, though, said the experience was \u201cpretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an eventful week for Trump. She played nine holes of a pro-am round Monday with tournament host Sorenstam, who empathized with the difficulty of handling an intense swirl of criticism and support.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t know how she does it, honestly,\u201d Sorenstam said. \u201cTo be 18 years old and hear all the comments, she must be super tough on the inside. I\u2019m sure we can all relate what it\u2019s like to get criticism here and there, but she gets it a thousand times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sorenstam recalled her own exemption for the Bank of America Colonial in 2003 when she became the first woman to play in a men\u2019s PGA Tour event<\/a> in 58 years. She made a 14-foot putt at the 18th green to give her a 36-hole total of five-over 145. She hurled her golf ball into the grandstand, wiped away tears and was hugged by her husband, David Esch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was, at the time, maybe a little bit of a controversial invite,\u201d Sorenstam said. \u201cIn the end, I certainly appreciated it. It just brings attention to the tournament, to the sport and to women\u2019s sports, which I think is what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kai Trump, a high school senior playing in an LPGA Tour event for reasons beyond her ability to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7366,34156,34162,34157,34155,48,52,51,47,50,49,1741,34159,34160,34158,34161,4610,315,12967,430,1557],"class_list":["post-54595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-criticism","tag-exemption","tag-fifth-hole","tag-golf-ball","tag-kai-trump","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-lpga-annika-event","tag-pelican-golf-club","tag-second-round","tag-sorenstam","tag-thing","tag-time","tag-tournament","tag-week","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}