Popular rookie had this funny reaction to an eagle during her 'psycho' round
LPGA rookie Natasha Oon overcame five bogeys and a double by making six birdies and an eagle to make the cut in the Founders Cup
On only the second hole in her first start as a rookie on the LPGA Tour, Natasha Oon suffered a quadruple-bogey 8 in the Fortinet Founders Cup. It would have been easy to write her off for the weekend at Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park, Calif. , but to do so would have ignored the fight she’s shown in even being able to play professional golf.
Oon has taken more than two years since she earned her LPGA card because of foot injuries, and the emotions were high and the nerves apparent when she was already four over after two holes on Thursday. Like seemingly everything else in her life, Oon seemed to find a way to laugh that off. “I mean, it's an 8 and I say 'I ate'—you know, that's like a Gen Z thing,” Oon said with a big smile on Friday while visiting the Golf Channel booth after her round.
With an ebullient personality as big as any that have been in women’s golf since probably Christina Kim in her prime, the LPGA and television producers are going to find any way to highlight Oon, and she gave them plenty of fodder over her first two rounds. The 24-year-old San Jose State grad, playing close to her old college haunts, bounced back from that early quad on Thursday by shooting even-par 72, and then on Friday, her scorecard was so wild that Oon’s friend and mentor, Hall of Famer Juli Inkster, called it “psycho. ” In a stretch of 13 holes, Oon recorded only one par, and she made only four pars in the round.
She suffered one double bogey and five bogeys, but countered with six birdies and a spectacular eagle that she celebrated by flopping to the turf. And her two-under 70 left Oon in tears on her finishing hole, No. 9, because she’d made the cut in her first rookie start after such a long journey back.