Kai Trump improves by 8 strokes but misses cut at

Kai Trump, a high faculty senior taking part in in an LPGA Tour event for causes past her means to hit a golf ball, went from “definitely really nervous” in the first spherical Thursday to “very calm and peaceful” Friday in the second.

All in all, an spectacular enchancment.

Still, Trump, 18, didn’t make the cut, not after ending last among 108 gamers with a two-round whole of 18-over par, 27 pictures behind chief Grace Kim and 17 away from the projected cut line. The granddaughter of President Trump improved eight strokes to a 75 in the second spherical of the event hosted by Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Fla.

How dramatic was the improve? Trump had 9 bogeys, two doubles and one birdie Thursday. A day later she was briefly under par when she birdied the par-three third gap, but she bogeyed the fourth and triple-bogeyed the par-four fifth gap.

Trump rebounded to birdie three of her next six holes. How relaxed was she? She actually laughed off her triple bogey.

“Things are going to happen,” she said. “Once it happens, you can’t go back in time and fix it. The best thing I could do is move on. Like, I told my caddie, Allan [Kournikova], kind of just started laughing, ‘it is what it is.’

“We got that out of the way, so let’s just move on. It was pretty easy to move on after that.”

Especially on the par-three twelfth where she practically made the first hole-in-one of her life.

“I hit like a tight little draw into it,” Trump said. “Tried not to get too high because of the wind. Yeah, it was a great shot.”

What would she inform her grandfather about the spherical? “That I hit a great shot on 12 two days in a row.”

“I did everything I could possibly have done for this tournament, so I think if you prepare right, the nerves can … they’re always going to be there, right?,” she said. “They can be a little softened. So I would just say that.”

Critics among and past her practically 9 million social media followers had been relentless in noting her apparent privilege for (*8*)securing a sponsor invitation. Dan Doyle Jr., proprietor of Pelican Golf Club, cheerfully acknowledged that Trump’s inclusion had little to do with means and a lot to do with public relations.

“The idea of the exemption, when you go into the history of exemptions, is to bring attention to an event,” Doyle told reporters this week. “You got to see her live, she’s lovely to speak to.

“And she’s brought a lot of viewers through Instagram, and things like that, who normally don’t watch women’s golf. That was the hope. And we’re seeing that now.”

Trump attends the Benjamin School in Palm Beach and will attend the University of Miami next 12 months. She is ranked No. 461 by the American Junior Golf Assn.

Stepping up to the LPGA, full with a deep gallery of onlookers and a phalanx of Secret Service brokers surrounding her, might have been daunting. Trump, though, said the expertise was “pretty cool.”

It was an eventful week for Trump. She performed 9 holes of a pro-am spherical Monday with event host Sorenstam, who empathized with the issue of handling an intense swirl of criticism and help.

“I just don’t know how she does it, honestly,” Sorenstam said. “To be 18 years old and hear all the comments, she must be super tough on the inside. I’m sure we can all relate what it’s like to get criticism here and there, but she gets it a thousand times.”

Sorenstam recalled her own exemption for the Bank of America Colonial in 2003 when she grew to become the first girl to play in a males’s PGA Tour event in 58 years. She made a 14-foot putt at the 18th inexperienced to give her a 36-hole whole of five-over 145. She hurled her golf ball into the grandstand, wiped away tears and was hugged by her husband, David Esch.

“That was, at the time, maybe a little bit of a controversial invite,” Sorenstam said. “In the end, I certainly appreciated it. It just brings attention to the tournament, to the sport and to women’s sports, which I think is what we want.”