After Back-to-Back Missed Cuts, Alexa Pano Finds Herself in Contention at AIG

It's been a rather interesting year for Alexa Pano, riddled with a few ups and downs, but the young LPGA star quietly found something in her game during the opening round of the 2025 AIG Women's Open and whatever it was, landed her inside the top-10.

“Obviously it's tough when you're struggling a little bit. I don't know, just woke up with a good feeling on Sunday and Monday this week, was eager to get out here. Any time you have the opportunity to play in a major championship, it kind of gets you excited,” Pano said following the first round at Royal Porthcawl, where she posted an opening score of 69, three-under par.

“Definitely was feeling a lot better about this week. Just got to keep grinding at it. You never know how close you are. When things are tough, my dad always says, ‘You're not as far away as you think you are,’ and when things are good, ‘You're not always as good as you think you are.’”

In 17 starts, she's made 11 cuts, and is recently coming off back-to-back events of weekend-less golf. But this was a step in the right direction for Pano—nothing drastic, just a small nudge in the right direction.

It's wasn't one of those rounds that felt lights-out, but rather a steady strong of holes to keep herself exactly where she needed to be. Her round began with three pars before, she hopped on the birdie-bogey-birdie rollercoaster on holes four, five and six. She hovered around 1-under for much of the day before making an eagle on the ninth to go out at 33.

Pano steadied the ship for most of the back nine before slipping again with a bogey on the par-4 17th hole, falling back to 2-under. But she ended her round on a high note, recovering with a closing birdie on the 18th, going into the clubhouse with a solid 60—her first sub-70 round since day two of The Amundi Evian Championship.

Maybe all she needed was a little links golf in her life. She hasn't seen better than T-67 at a major this year, but at last year's AIG, she finished in a tie for 10th in her tournament debut at the Old Course at St Andrews. "Yeah, I put in a lot of work this week, spent a lot of hours here. I think links golf is fun because you don't have to hit every shot perfect," Pano explained. "You can play a round with different shots. It's not traditional, you need to birdie every single hole golf. So I think I kind of prefer that. Hopefully I'll keep preferring that."

Pano goes off at 1:54 pm local time Friday afternoon, along side long-hitting rookie Julia Lopez Ramirez and Ina Yoon of Korea. See tee times/groups and how to watch here.