Few debuts can boast such impact. Kai Trump, 17 years old and still in high school, is facing her first tournament in the LPGA thanks to the invitation she received for the Annika driven by Gainbridge at Pelican. Only Kai could have three mentors of such calibre for her start: her grandfather, the President of the United States; Tiger Woods, her mother’s partner; and the legend who gives the tournament its name, Annika Sorenstam. The greatest of all time, the greatest of all time, and the President of the United States… quite something.
The young American arrives at Pelican Golf Club as one of the three sponsor invites and has already played nine holes with Sorenstam during the pro-am. The experience, she confessed in the press room, was more than a dream come true: “I asked her many things about the swing and how to play around the greens,” the teenager summarised. “These greens are tough, you can hit different types of shots, and I wanted to know her opinion. She told me to enjoy it, because the first tournament only happens once.”
The advice sums up the spirit of her week. Both her grandfather and Tiger repeated the same idea to her: relax and enjoy. “My grandfather told me to go out and have fun, to try not to get nervous,” Kai said with a smile. “And Tiger too: to have a good time, to let things flow. Whatever happens, happens.
That naturalness is perhaps her best calling card. The President’s granddaughter —who will start her university stage in a few months at the University of Miami— moves with surprising poise among established professionals. She doesn’t hide the excitement of training alongside Nelly Korda or sharing the course with players she has followed since she was a child, but she keeps her feet on the ground. “I’m going to learn a lot, whatever happens. Being inside the ropes with the best in the world is already something incredible,” she said.
Kai defines herself as a great ball striker, although she acknowledges that the short game is her weak point. She has worked on it especially to adapt to the fast and demanding greens of Belleair. Beyond the results, she insists that the important thing will be to leave the tournament with lessons that will serve her for the future.
On Thursday, she will experience the moment she has been dreaming of since she started playing at just two years old. She admits she will be nervous, of course, but the advice she has received echoes in the background: enjoy and learn. Three different voices —Annika, Tiger, and her grandfather— telling her the same thing before the first shot of her life in the LPGA. Now it’s time to try to put it into practice.
