Top amateur Kiara Romero’s star potential showed in unexpected moments at Chevron

HOUSTON — Everyone expects Kiara Romero to become a star whenever she joins the LPGA. You could see why on Thursday, just not in the moments you’d expect.

The World No. 1 amateur went out in the first round of the Chevron Championship and immediately rose up the leaderboard at Memorial Park. The 20-year-old Oregon Duck went out in 3-under and then stuffed her third shot on the par-5 14th to five feet for another birdie to get within one of the early lead. The buzz around the year’s first major started to build as Romero’s name ascended the leaderboard. The idea of the future arriving ahead of schedule has a gravity of its own; there’s a unique electricity created by world-beating potential. Romero is no stranger to contention. She wins a lot at the collegiate level. She won the U.S. Girls Junior and played in the final round of the 2025 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

This is the stage she was seemingly made for. Not because of her pristine iron play, reliable putter or length off the tee. But because of what happened when her rise up the Chevron Championship leaderboard stalled out.

At the par-3 15th, Romero’s tee shot missed the green short and left. She chipped up but missed the par putt. Next came the long par-5 15th. Romero striped her tee shot, leaving her with just over 200 yards in with a helping wind. With her father, Rick, watching from the rope line, Romero readied to fire at the green. She stood over the ball, looked at her target and then repositioned her body, something she hadn’t done for the entire round. It was a moment of uncertainty, one that Team Romero noticed, and it ended with Romero hanging her approach out to the right and into the water.

Despite leaking oil at a major championship, Romero never flinched. Her head never dropped. Her father would say there’s no need for “wasted energy.” Had you not witnessed her ball landing in the middle of the pond, you would have no idea that things should be moving fast for the 20-year-old. Romero marched calmly on as if nothing had changed over the past two holes. She bogeyed 16 and then tugged her tee shot on 17. Her ball settled under a tree but her demeanor never changed. Romero steadied herself, went through her process, and stemmed the bleeding with a par at 17. She missed a 6-footer for par on 18 to finish at 1 under but closed out her stay still oozing with confidence.

“I feel like going back to knowing my game has been good all day,” Romero said of her ability to reset and stay in the moment. “It’s not like one shot is going to change that. I think the back nine is definitely harder than the front nine, so I think just kind of battling that and kind of going through like the same swing, same game plan, same mindset, it’s really important.”

The margins are vanishingly thin at the pro level. The difference between racking up wins and grinding for your card can be infinitesimal. But almost all great players share something in common — an unflappable calmness that allows them to stop things from spinning out of control. Their focus is always on the next swing, not the one they just made.

Romero has been preparing for these moments. Every collegiate tournament she wins, every LPGA start she makes as an amateur is a building block on the road to the place her game suggests she’ll one day reach.

Perhaps none was bigger than last summer’s weekend at the U.S. Women’s Open at Erin Hills. Romero made the cut in Wisconsin and then got U.S. Opened in the third round when she fired a 12-over 84, which included a quadruple bogey, to plummet to dead last. It was a gut punch to a player unaccustomed to taking deep cuts on the golf course. But Romero was unshaken, and she returned for the final round and shot a 5-under 67, the lowest final round by an amateur in U.S. Women’s Open history. Resilience and confidence are the point for her.

“I think the biggest thing I learned from that tournament was just kind of knowing that I can bounce back from anything,” Romero said of that Sunday at Erin Hills. “I feel like that third round was definitely my worst round in like the past like ten years probably. But then the next day, I broke the record.

“So just knowing there can be that big range of success, and like your game can go from being the worst one day and the next it’ll be the best, and that’s just really how golf is. So it doesn’t like define you whether you have a bad day or not.”

Romero will be here one day soon.

She has already accumulated 14 LEAP points for the LPGA’s pathway for top amateurs to earn a card. She is six points shy of the 20-point mark that will earn her status on the LPGA. A made cut this week will earn her another point. A top-25 finish will get her two more points. It’s a matter of when, not if, Romero is competing regularly against the world’s best.

But she already looks and feels like she belongs.

“Just being out here and knowing the experience and kind of knowing what it’s going to be like and knowing the pressures of playing with some of the best players in the world and playing in front of a crowd and playing on TV, all that stuff, just kind of knowing what’s ahead and what’s going to be there, I think it’s definitely a lot more comfortable for me,” she said.

Romero finished her round by bogeying three of her final four holes. For many, that means a quick trip to the range to find an antidote for what sidetracked a great round. For her, it meant nothing at all. Her swing told her she was fine. She plays an imperfect game and is wired to accept that, for all her talent, she will make mistakes. She knows better than to waste her energy on what has already happened.

All that matters is what’s next, what’s in front of her. If Thursday was any indication, what awaits is everything.