An LPGA sophomore season is usually defined by players picking and choosing their events after sampling as many courses as possible during their rookie year. They start finding a season-long rhythm, discovering a daily routine, how to book their travel, when to practice, how many events in a row their body can handle before taking a break, and answering the questions only experience could allow them to discover.
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Alexa Pano mixed up the recipe. Following 21 starts in her 2023 rookie year, including her maiden LPGA title in the ISPS Handa World Invitational, this week’s Annika event is her 28th appearance of 2024. That’s only one more than the tour leader in starts, Jasmine Suwanapurra. (World No. 1 Nelly Korda has 15 starts.)
Even with playing more events, the 20-year-old Florida native sits on the outside of the CME Group Tour Championship bubble, currently No. 66 and needing to claw into the top 60 to make a second appearance in the LPGA’s lucrative season finale next week.
Worn out from a four-week stretch of competition in the recent LPGA Asian swing, with a best finish of T-24, Pano risked taking off last week’s Lotte Championship, resulting in a drop from No. 62 to No. 66 and giving herself only one event to play into the CME.
The down time looks to have been crucial. Even with a double bogey on the last hole on Friday, a fresher Pano poured in nine birdies and matched her season-best score with a six-under 64 at Pelican Golf Club in Bellair, Fla. At seven under through two rounds, Pano will contend into the weekend in her home state, needing at a top-11 finish or better to get into the tour’s final event. In a four-way tie for third, Pano trails leader Charley Hull by three shots and World No. 1 Nelly Korda by two.
Alexa Pano, alongside her dad and caddie, Rick, reacts while en route to a double bogey on teh 18th hole in The Annika second round.
Cliff Hawkins
“I could have picked my schedule a little bit better this year,” Pano said after her round. “I signed up for literally everything and committed and played everything, which is good in some ways and other ways was a good learning experience for me to give myself some rest.”
One of the stars of the 2013 Netflix documentary “Short Game,” Pano started the year with a runner-up to Lydia Ko in the Tournament of Champions in January in Florida. She then headed off to the opening Southeast Asia swing, a goldmine of CME points with its two no-cut, limited-field events, and a chance to virtually lock up a spot in the Tour Championship with nine months remaining in the season. But Pano got sick during the HSBC Women’s World Championship and had to withdraw before the final round. She returned across the Pacific Ocean with a meager 11 points of her 612.1 on the year.
As the LPGA returned stateside, Pano’s starts mounted as she relentlessly teed up week after week and struggled more to break out of the bottom of leaderboards than get into contention. Her futile Sunday results might reflect her year-long exhaustion.
It took Pano 10 domestic starts just to crack the top 20 again, and that was with a closing 73 in the Meijer LPGA Classic that knocked her from T-7 to T-17. She missed three of her next four cuts before August’s Portland Classic, where she was second going into Sunday, but faltered with a 74 to tie for 14th. Another missed opportunity came in the AIG Women’s Open at St. Andrews, where Pano was T-6 heading into the final round, but faltered with a 74 to get a T-10.
The stark Sundays are a substantial reason Pano is outside the CME bubble. Over 15 fourth rounds this year, she’s averaged 73.5 – her worst performances of the week by a stroke and a half – and almost two shots worse than her rookie year’s Sunday average of 71.7.
On Friday, Pano pushed aside questions about how important getting into the CME is for her. The weekend is all that matters right now.
“The only thing on my mind right now is … Annika’s event,” Pano said. “Just focusing on the two days I have in front of me and putting the best 36 holes together that I can.”
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
