Chevron Championship: Jennifer Kupcho is feeling comfortable on the golf course, fires opening round 66

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Jennifer Kupcho is having a great 2022, and her opening round of 6-under 66 at the Chevron Championship on Thursday isn’t the reason.

Kupcho got married on February 19 in Arizona, and the sampling of wedding day photos she posted on Instagram includes a picturesque sunset shot of her taking a swing at a driving range with her wedding dress on.

She opted for the more traditional golf attire of green shorts and a black shirt on Thursday as she tore through the Dinah Shore Tournament Course. After four straight birdies on the back nine, she reached 8 under through 14 holes, which put her in striking distance of the record round of 10 under (shared by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko). But back-to-back bogeys on 15 and 16 had her settling for a fine round of 66.

Kupcho singled out one club, the biggest one in her bag, for the reason she started so fast.

“I haven’t been hitting my driver particularly well recently, and that’s usually my strongest suit, so to come out and you really need to hit fairways on a major golf course and that was my big thing today,” the 24-year-old from Colorado said. “I hit a bunch of fairways, and that really set me up for my birdies.”

Kupcho said she grinded on the driving range Wednesday night with her driver after hitting it all over the place during Wednesday’s pro-am. That extra work paid off. She hit 11 of 14 fairways with an average drive of 271 yards. That helps you get nine birdies in 18 holes.

Kupcho may not be a household name yet, but she’s getting close. She was a top amateur player out of Wake Forest, and famously won the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur in 2019. She turned pro and finished tied for second in a major event later that year at the Evian Championship. Since then, she has risen high enough in the world of American LPGA players that she was on the 2021 Solheim Cup team.

She acquitted herself well at the Solheim Cup, teaming with Lizette Salas to pick up two wins and a halve in the 15-13 American loss.

Speaking of Salas, Kupcho was partnered with Salas on Thursday and will be again Friday. The two developed such a bond at the Solheim Cup that Salas attended Kupcho’s wedding.

Kupcho kept repeating the same word about her round Thursday, “comfortable.”

“Honestly, it’s just being comfortable on this golf course. I get here and I feel comfortable and I love this place and then getting to play with Lizette who is my good friend. It was just all comfortable and really fun,” she said. “This is similar to Colorado golf, so similar to Arizona golf, which is where I live now. The same type of grass. I felt good out there.”

While the driver is traditionally her strong suit, her putter has been considered a weakness, and that was the club she focused on during the offseason.

And her putting coach during that time was none other than her now-husband Jay Monahan (that’s Jay Monahan the LPGA caddie, not Jay Monahan the commissioner of the PGA Tour). Her husband, in fact, is caddying this week for another player in the field, American Sarah Schmelzel.

Kupcho was on fire with the short blade on Thursday, needing just 24 putts to get around the course. She made a 25-footer for birdie on 14, which elicited a fist-pump.

“I’ve been working on my putting a lot.  I really just worked with actually my husband who is a great putter, and he really knows my game well so I worked on it a lot with him over the offseason and worked on my stroke and my stroke has been really good recently,” she said.

She’s had success at a major before, been on the Solheim Cup, won at the amateur level, so is she at the point now where she feels comfortable at an event like the Chevron Championship, or are there still nerves?

“Everyone gets nervous, but I think it’s more of just getting used to the nerves and figuring out how to deal with it and learning different tactics, and that’s what I’ve definitely tried to do in the big events that I’ve played in,” she said.

Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.