Mimi Rhodes remembers every inch of the putt that delivered her LPGA tour card. It was downhill, left-to-right, 3 percent break. The putt rolled like it was in slow-motion. Her first thought: hit it right where she wanted.
“Halfway I was like, ‘Oh my God, it looks like it’s going to go in. Wait, no,'” Rhodes said with a laugh. “And then I was like, is it going in? Oh my God, it went in!”
An Epson Tour media official caught the moment on camera, and Rhodes’ mother Penny is there in the background, alone, celebrating. “Oh yes! Yes!” she says with her hands held wide.
The making of that crucial putt on the 72nd hole at LPGA Qualifying School can be traced back to two things. The first, as fellow Englishwoman and major champion Karen Stupples calls it, is the clutch gene.
The second goes back to her junior year of college, roughly 15 months before she planned to turn professional. Rhodes’ Wake Forest coaches sat her down with a pile of stats and basically said if you want to make it as a pro, we’re going to have to ban you from the range.
Maybe not in those words exactly, but Rhodes’ proximity to the hole was so good, yet she was averaging 34 to 35 putts per round.
Rhodes, 24, remembers the conversation vividly as she had just broken up with a boyfriend, and now they were basically asking her to break up with the range, too. At least for the first two hours of practice.
“At the time, I was like really angry and frustrated because all I wanted to do was hit balls on the range, like it’s all like I’d never known,” said Rhodes. “I just love being on the range.”
The coaches did their best to make it fun.
“She was going to outwork everybody,” said Wake Forest head coach Kim Lewellen.
Rhodes went undefeated at the 2023 NCAA Championship, when the Demon Deacons won the program’s first title. Three members of that winning team earned their LPGA cards last December to join the rookie class.
Rhodes became such a believer in the power of putting that to this day she begins each practice session on the putting green rather than the range, when both mind and body feel the freshest.
Mimi Rhodes makes LPGA debut in Singapore
Rhodes begins her rookie season on the LPGA this week at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore, where she’s playing on a sponsor invite and in a share of third after the first round. With two English players now in the top 10 in the world – No. 3 Charley Hull and No. 9 Lottie Woad – Rhodes has a chance to help…
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