Picture this: You’re an 11-year-old golf fanatic, boarding a flight to Augusta, buzzing with excitement. You glance around and—wait a second—is that the Martin Kaymer, fresh off his U.S. Open victory, sitting just a few rows away? Then, as if the golf gods themselves are playing a prank, he hands you a box of golf balls and promises to watch you play the next day. Sounds like a dream, right? Well, for a young Megha Ganne, it was very real… and it did not go as planned.
Megha Ganne recently sat down with Golf.com’s Claire Rogers alongside fellow ANWA stars Rachel Heck, Kiara Romero, and Lottie Woad for an episode of The Scoop. The group was casually chatting over Augusta’s legendary Georgia Peach ice cream sandwiches when Megha was asked about her earliest memory of the event. What followed was a hilarious story about the time she had a close encounter with a major champion—one that didn’t exactly go as she’d hoped.
“Okay, the only thing I remember from my first trip was when I was 11,” Ganne said. “Um, I was on a connecting flight from Charlotte to Augusta, and at the time—this was 2014—Martin Kaymer had just won the U.S. Open. And he was on my flight! I was freaking out because, like, he had just won the U.S. Open.”
Kaymer had been in top form when he arrived at Pinehurst in 2014. After all, he had clinched the Players Championship just a month earlier. But even he was surprised by how he performed at Pinehurst to clinch his second career major, becoming the first player from continental Europe to win a US Open. He shot back-to-back 65s in the first two rounds, getting himself half a dozen shots clear of the field, and setting the record for the biggest halfway lead at the competition. In fact, he went on to maintain his lead the entire week, ultimately finishing at 9 under with an 8 stroke advantage.
“It was overwhelming feeling winning a major by eight shots. I did not expect myself to do that,” Kaymer said. Young Ganne also hadn’t foreseen the gesture the German would extend to her.
“He gave me a box of balls and said, ‘I’m going to come watch you tomorrow,’” she continued. “And I was like, ‘No way, he’s not actually going to come watch me.’ But then he did!”
“Yeah, so… and then I hit both my drives out of bounds when he was watching. But it was fine—he gave me special tees to use. Well, they weren’t actually special at all, but it’s okay. They felt special. They felt special.”
Imagine that. You’re 11 years old, still star-struck from seeing a guy who just hoisted a U.S. Open trophy, and then, instead of showing him why you’re the next big thing in golf, you promptly launch two drives straight into the trees. If there’s ever been a better example of the golf gods having a sense of humor, this might be it. But then again, Ganne has done more than enough to redeem herself in the eyes of Kaymer and the rest of the golfing world.
Megha Ganne: From embarrassment to tournament dominance
Before her 2021 debut, Ganne competed as a four-time Drive, Chip, and Putt National Finalist at Augusta National, securing runner-up finishes in her age division in both 2017 and 2019.
Flash forward to 2025, and Megha Ganne has clearly left that childhood moment in the past. She arrived at Augusta this week not just as a promising amateur, but as one of the tournament’s top contenders. And she wasted no time proving why. The Stanford junior has played at the famed course multiple times, but this week, she made history at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur (ANWA), setting a new tournament record with a blistering 9-under-par 63. It was the lowest round in ANWA history and the best of her career.
Finishing in style.
Megha Ganne caps off her round with a birdie for -8 and T2 heading into Augusta National.#ANWAgolf | @StanfordWGolf pic.twitter.com/Vh1enkruX3
— Augusta National Women’s Amateur (@anwagolf) April 3, 2025
Seven birdies, one eagle, and not a single mistake—now that’s how you impress a major winner. Even she admitted that a key factor in her improved game has been her fitness, particularly working on mobility after recovering from an injury. “I’ve just been working out a lot more, not necessarily lifting weights, but after my injury, getting a lot more flexible and mobile in my hip, which I didn’t know that was like a weakness of mine. So, after that, I think my swing kind of saw the progress in my swing just from that,” she said.
And while course conditions can often make or break a round, Ganne found herself benefiting from a slight change at Augusta. “The two trees being gone, sad to see them go for the trees’ sake, but for my sake, it definitely helped my round,” she said. “It just opens up the hole way more, you can hit driver off of those holes more comfortably. You have a shorter club in, those trees would bat your ball down, so I think the course… it is playing at least a stroke easier.”
Her performance left the rest of the field scrambling to keep up. Defending champion Lottie Woad came the closest, carding a 7-under 65 to sit just two shots back. Even Woad, who was expecting low scores, admitted she wasn’t quite ready for Ganne’s historic 63. “I feel like before today I would’ve thought seven under was a good score,” Woad said. “I knew it would be soft and very scoreable, but I didn’t really see a 63.”
Ganne’s rise from a young golfer nervously shanking drives in front of Martin Kaymer to a record-setting ANWA contender is a testament to how far she’s come. And while she may not have aced her first impression on a major champion, she’s certainly making up for it now.
At just 20 years old, she’s already proven she can perform on the biggest amateur stage. Now, she’s got her sights set on the ANWA trophy—and if she keeps playing like this, there’s a good chance the next major champion watching her won’t just be in the crowd. They’ll be handing her a trophy.
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