The first major women’s major has many prominent names in the field whether it be World No. 1 Nelly Korda or the two-time major winner Lydia Ko. However, an unexpected name rose to the top during the first round at the Club at Carlton Woods. It is the Minnesota native Lauren Coughlin.

The LPGA pro started her first round at the Chevron Championship with six birdies and carded an impressive score of 6-under 66 and is currently holding the top stop on the leaderboard. Her 2024 season did not start great, but looks like she is finally catching up, and how!

Lauren Coughlin’s golfing journey

Lauren Coughlin started getting a knack for golf at the early age of 7. She earned a scholarship at the University of Virginia and enjoyed an exceptional amateur career. Her first tournament was in 2009, the Virginia State Golf Association Women’s Amateur Championship. She finally won it in 2012 and won the championship two more times as an amateur. She only kept on growing, as she bagged the win at the ACC Individual Champion in 2016 and 2017. She also became the league captain of the All-ACC squad in 2016.

Coughlin began her professional journey in 2017 and bagged the T7 position at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament, earning priority list category 12 status for the 2018 season. She also made a cut in 8-of-13 starts in the Epson Tour three top-25 finishes. In 2018, she managed to make only 4 cuts in a total of 18 events that year and had to go back to the Futures Tour. But her tying for the 39th position in the inaugural LPGA Q-series once again grabbed her the golden opportunity for the 2019 season.

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One of the difficulties that Lauren Coughlin faces is being consistent on the greens and making cuts in events. However, 2024 has been a comparatively better year, where she has missed only one cut so far at the FIR HILLS SERI PAK Championship. Apart from that, she has landed herself in the Top 25 four times in the season, among which she has also tied for the eighth position at the Ford Championship. But her last match, the T-Mobile Match Play, did not go as planned as she ended the event at T32.

It looks like, she is making up for the lost effort in the Chevron Championship. Who knows, maybe she will finally grab her first win this year. But the question is, what turned around her game this time? Is it her constant battles to get to the top, or the change of plans in her caddie?

Lauren Coughlin’s husband caddying around for her

As Coughlin split with her old caddie after the spring Asian swing, her husband, John Pond, who just quit his job to experience the LPGA Tour with his wife, took up the job. Coughlin decided to give him three weeks to see how it goes and she said, “I’ll know after three weeks if we can do it. When I say we, I mean me.”

Post three weeks, as the two seemed to be going along pretty well on the greens, in the fourth week, she stepped into the Chevron Championship with him. It appears the husband-wife partnership is faring well for Coughlin. Way before they were not in partnership on the greens, Pond had been extremely supportive of her passion. The two even went to the Masters together this year.

Well, to think of it, their journey began with her dream university. Pond’s roommate took Coughlin out on a date, and later on, she bonded with him. He said, “At UVA, you can’t have a car the first year and the big boys need to eat. So I took full advantage of that, and then that turned into a relationship.” He proposed to her after Coughlin won her first individual win at the 2016 ACC Championship, and there was no chance she was going to say no! And well, that was what marked the beginning of a lifetime for them!