Pano, a veteran at 13, leads by one in qualifying in U.S. Women's Amateur

   She was only 11-years old when she teed it up in the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green Golf Club, but Alexa Pano of Lake Worth, Fla. was well known in the circles of pre-junior golf.

   She had won a couple of Drive, Chip & Putt championships, but still she was only 11 and she would shoot 81 and 75 over the tough William Flynn design and fail to make match play.

   Less than a month later, having turned 12 in the interim, Pano carded a 5-under 211 total at Saucon Valley Country Club’s Weyhill Course to claim her first American Junior Golf Association victory in the PDQ / Philadelphia Runner Junior.

   So, she’s still only 13 – going on 14 – but there she was Monday in the opening round of qualifying for the 2018 U.S. Women’s Amateur, firing a 5-under 66 to lead a pack of talented pursuers at The Golf Club of Tennessee in Kingston Springs, Tenn. outside of Nashville.

  Pano is coming off a loss to a red-hot Yealimi Noh in the final of the U.S. Girls’ Junior at Poppy Hills Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula. After the fog-fest at Poppy Hills, the near-100-degree real-feel temperatures in Tennessee were probably a welcome change for Pano.

   Pano made three birdies on the front nine on The Golf Club of Tennessee layout, but two bogeys left her at 1-under heading for the back nine. She was hitting it close all day and on the back nine, the putts really started to fall as she made birdies at 12, 14, 16 and 17 to surge to the top of the leaderboard.

   It was a tough day for the local contingent at The Golf Club of Tennessee.

   North Carolina junior Brynn Walker, a two-time PIAA Class AAA champion at Radnor who plays out of St. Davids Golf Club, struggled to a 7-over 78 that might leave her with too much to do in Tuesday’s second round to make the top 64 that will advance to match play.

   Walker, the medalist in a qualifier at Hackensack Golf Club in Oradell, N.J., started on the back nine and was at even-par for her round when she birdied the 17^th hole, her eighth of the day. But Walker’s fortunes turned with a double bogey at the 18^th and she never really recovered. She made a double bogey at the third and then made bogeys at six, seven and nine for a front-nine 41.

   Penn State senior Jackie Rogowicz, who was a two-time PIAA Class AAA runnerup during an outstanding scholastic career at Pennsbury, carded an 80. Rogowicz also came through the qualifier at Hackensack.

   Meghan Stasi, a four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion and an eight-time winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia Match Play Championship, posted a 76. Stasi, a South Jersey native who was Meghan Bolger when she won the Philadelphia Women’s Amateur seven straight times, lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

   Rogowicz’s Penn State teammate, senior Lauren Waller, who lost to Walker in a playoff for the state title in 2014 as a senior at Canon-McMillan, signed for a 75.

   With 78 players at 1-over or better following Monday’s opening round, the cut for match play figures to be only a couple over par at best.

   Pano’s 66 gave her a one-shot lead over seven players who were tied for second at 4-under 67, led by UCLA sophomore Patty Tavatanakit, a native of Thailand who was the best of an immensely talented freshman class in college golf last season. 

   Tavatanakit, No. 7 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), was the individual champion in the Pac-12 Championship and led the Bruins to the team title in the deepest conference in women’s college golf.

   Three of Tavatanakit’s Pac-12 rivals were among the six other players who came in at 4-under Monday.

   Arizona senior Bianca Pagdanganan of the Philippines was a key player in the Wildcats’ run to the NCAA championship at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. this spring. Her stunning putt for eagle on the 18^th hole enabled Arizona to get into a playoff for the final berth in match play. The Wildcats survived that playoff and the rest is NCAA women’s golf history.

   Also in the group is Arizona State junior Olivia Mehaffey, a native of Ireland who has twice been selected to the Great Britain & Ireland Curtis Cup team, including this year when GB&I fell to the United States at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y. Mehaffey, No. 21 in the Women’s WAGR, was a key contributor as a freshman for the Sun Devils when they won the 2017 NCAA championship at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill.

   Also posting a 67 was Ziyi Wang, a junior at Stanford who helped the Cardinal reach the semifinals in the NCAA Championship, where they were knocked off by Arizona. Wang is a native of China.

   Rounding out the group tied for second are two South Koreans, Bohyun Park and Hyun Selin and Suzuka Yamaguchi of Japan.

   There are 12 mores players tied for ninth at 3-under 68.

   Included in that group are Wang’s Stanford classmate, Albane Valenzuela, No. 3 in the Women’s WAGR who was the runnerup in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Amateur at San Diego Country Club, and Lucy Li, the 15-year-old phenom from Redwood Shores, Calif. who fell to Pano in the semifinals of the U.S. Girls’ Junior at Poppy Hills. Li, a member of the winning U.S. Curtis Cup team at Quaker Ridge, is No. 9 in the Women’s WAGR.