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.
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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.”
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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.
“I’m so honored and grateful to be in this booth and having such an amazing round of ups and downs. I really, really experienced golf when I’m coming back,” Oon said.
Describing her emotions as she came up her final hole, ultimately having a short tap-in for par, Oon said, “I was coming up on 9 and I was telling David, my caddie, ‘I’m scared. I’m really scared. This is really nerve-wracking.’ And then suddenly I was hitting a good drive; I was hitting a good iron shot; and then I had a nine-footer for birdie, and it lipped [out]. And all of the emotions I felt, like the struggles and the journey, the length of the journey, and everything I’ve been waiting for just in making it [to] the weekend. This is such a story book moment.”
Oon’s eagle came on her seventh hole of the day when she stood at three over for the round. At the par-4 16th, she hit iron a bit long and left of the flag, but the ball trickled down from the bank and rolled into the cup. From a distance, the camera caught Oon picking herself up from the fairway on a day when a California heat wave pushed temperatures into the low 90s.
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“I felt the heat and I was just like, ‘we’re gonna fight, we’re gonna fight,’” Oon said. “And I was a little like demotivated, I guess, from the double and the bogey. And then, boom, I hit an eagle and I just felt like falling to the floor.”
A native of Malaysia, Oon earned her LPGA card following her 2023 Epson Tour season in which she won once and posted four runner-up finishes. But she suffered from right foot pain that was ultimately diagnosed as a sesamoid fracture that had to be surgically repaired.
Oon hadn’t made another professional start until entering two Epson events early this season. (She tied for fifth in the IOA Golf Classic last week.)
At two under through 36 holes, Oon was tied for 32nd heading into the weekend and ahead of numerous current LPGA stars. South Korean Hy Joo Kim followed up her opening 63 with a 70 to maintain her lead at 11 under. She was four shots ahead of Mexico’s Gaby Lopez, who shot 70. World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul charged with a 66 and No. 2 Nelly Korda scored 68 to be in an eight-player pack tied at six under.
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