A couple of months ago, Megha Ganne, the 2025 U.S. Women’s Amateur champion and a decorated collegiate player, surprisingly missed the cut at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. And how did she take it?

She called it cool.

Let her explain.

“ANWA was cool for me because I have not played that poorly in a big event in a long time, so I guess there has always been a little pocket of my head where it’s like, What happens when you don’t play well at a really big tournament?” she said Monday at the U.S. Women’s Open, her first start as a professional.

She seems to already think and talk like a pro.

“Maybe not fear is the right word, but just curiosity of what that would look like and how that would affect me,” she continued, answering the question about how she stays confident when things don’t go her way. “At ANWA I learned the answer, and the answer is absolutely nothing. Life goes on. Then you wake up the next day and go practice. So I think just knowing there is so many opportunities, so many opportunities to prove yourself is the main thing I learned.”

That next opportunity is this week, at the 81st U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera in Pacific Palisades, Calif., and Ganne enters with some momentum. Last week, she helped her Stanford women’s golf team win the NCAA Championship, its third win in the last five years. Ganne finished second in stroke play and then went undefeated in match play, even clinching the title-winning point in the final against USC.

That put a bow on her senior year at Stanford, where over the last few years she continued to morph into one of the best amateur golfers in the country.

Now, as a professional — she finished atop the LPGA’s LCAP Ranking, meaning she has full Epson Tour status — she has new goals, like “just being comfortable being uncomfortable,” as she gets used to life on tour.

This will be Ganne’s fourth major start — and third U.S. Women’s Open — and she’s five years removed from her first, where for most of the week she was the talk of the tournament. As a 17-year-old, she held a share of the first-round lead, was tied for 3rd after 54 holes and ultimately finished 14th at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club.

She’s played in pro events since then, but for amateurs playing up with professionals, the whole thing can feel so novel, she said. Now it’s a job.

“When you go on Tour just with an exemption or just once, you spend so much time getting accustomed to the stuff that feels a little bit different, you don’t feel like you can maybe delve into your routines as much,” she said. “So I’m excited to build those new routines and see what they look like.”

She might be as prepared as any.

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