By Andy Abrahams
Elite golfers dream of the kind of dominant season Megha Ganne had in 2025. In April, the 21-year-old Jersey City native posted a tournament record nine-under par 63 in the first round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. In August, Ganne raised the winner’s trophy at the prestigious U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, beating Brooke Biermann, 4 and 3, in the 36-hole championship match and guaranteeing her an exemption in next year’s U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. And in early October, she led the U.S. team to victory in the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship in Singapore, posting an even-par 72 to get the American squad over the line in a tiebreaker with Spain and Korea. Two weeks later, Ganne, a senior on golf powerhouse Stanford’s squad, helped lead the Cardinal to a new team record win in the Stanford Intercollegiate while taking the individual championship, finishing at 10-under. Her remarkable run only burnished her reputation as one of women’s golf rising stars and now, Ganne can add another honor to her standout season: the 2025 MGA Women’s Player of the Year.
For the Met Area standout who started hitting balls with her father, Hari, at Galloping Hill Golf Course in Kenilworth, N.J., Ganne humbly acknowledges her roots. “The MGA is a community I grew up in, and I feel really close to the golf in the area,” Ganne says. “To represent (the MGA) on a national stage is really special, and it’s a cool award.”
Few who have followed the Holmdel High School graduate’s career are surprised at her steady march through the amateur ranks, which included bursting onto the national golf scene at 17 as an early-round leader at the U.S. Women’s Open in 2021. But as any good golfer knows, it takes countless hours of preparation and more than a little luck to play at such a high level.
Her performance at Bandon Dunes epitomized this approach to finishing strong. “So much stuff has to go right, and I felt lucky that this was able to happen in what is likely my last Women’s Am,” says Ganne, who plans to turn pro next year. “I set a lot of high goals, but none of them are around winning, per se. It’s around my scoring average or a component of my game that I’m working on that season. My benchmark is different than my ranking and wins, because that stuff is fleeting and beyond your control.”
Besides her father and mother, Sudha, the most consistent influence on Megha’s life has been her longtime swing coach, Katie Rudolph, who noticed her protégé when Ganne was seven at an LPGA/USGA clinic at Galloping Hill. “I love to tease her that she used to hold my hand when she crossed the street,” says Rudolph, whose relationship with Ganne has evolved from teacher to best friend. Her mentor couldn’t be prouder of the evolution of her student. “She’s matured, and she handles the pressure and attention really well. When she started, maybe she was just learning shots. Now, she’s in a refining period of her game to keep her skills sharp. I think that’s unique about where she is now.”
Getting there has tested the Jersey phenom more than once. She lost five times in the opening round of match play in USGA events, and in her last U.S. Girls’ Junior in 2022, she was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. Last year, she battled a hip injury and then had to bow out of the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Southern Hills in Oklahoma after a bout with food poisoning just before the first round. But rather than crumble under the weight of adversity, Ganne took a step away from the game to reset.
“I just spent time with family and friends, went on some real vacations for the first time in a while,” she says. “When I started playing again, it was even more refreshing to get back into the competitive mindset.”
All that positive temperament was forged growing up and playing in New Jersey and carefully guided by her parents. Her father, an IT entrepreneur, and her mother, an endocrinologist, made sure Megha and her sister, Sirina (now 18 and a walk-on to the Harvard golf team) made sure their daughters kept a healthy balance between family, school and sports. Ganne was studious, outgoing, and played golf, tennis, and swam competitively, even dabbling in musical theater.
“My parents made sure we had a normal life,” she says. “They knew I had high goals and helped me work really hard, taking me to tournaments.” One of her favorite memories was capturing the New Jersey Jr. PGA Championship when she was 13 at Neshanic Valley Golf Course. “That was the first event I remember winning that really meant something,” she says. “And winning a state title is always fun.”
Rudolph notes that while Ganne has known success on the course from an early age, the four-time Drive, Chip & Putt finalist and Junior Ryder Cup and Junior Solheim Cup team member started preparing for taking her game to the next level at the 2019 U.S. Women’s Open. Ganne was a qualifier for the event , and they scouted the pro competition and even played a practice round with Lexi Thompson.
“We were trying to compare what we were doing well and what we could do better,” says Rudolph, who texts with Ganne every day. “She was 15, so I couldn’t ask her to do that much yet, but I used that tournament to compare my notes and ask, ‘Am I doing this right?’”
Ganne was so nervous before the tournament that her hands shook when she tried to mark her golf balls and ended up missing the cut. Two years later, Rudolph started prepping Ganne for a better outcome at the Open at Olympic Country Club in San Francisco.
After an opening round 67 at Olympic, it looked like she might. The teen couldn’t quite sustain that level of play and finished tied for 14th, but the golf world stood up and took notice.
“Watching her walk those fairways and not just handle the pressure and survive but to thrive was a defining moment for me to realize she didn’t just have the golf game, she had the whole package,” Rudolph says.
Now, Ganne looks forward to winding down her collegiate career and setting her sights on the LPGA. But she’s also savoring her final months as an undergrad. She front-loaded the demanding Stanford academic schedule in her sophomore and junior years and set herself up for a “pretty chill senior year. There’s been ups and downs (at school), either socially or in golf, but right now, it’s really nice.”
Ganne says that while she admires the game of pros like Nelly Korda or Lydia Ko, she wants to be her own player. “Everyone’s super different, so I don’t feel like I resemble anybody.”
For now, she looks back on how far she’s come. “I’ve become a pretty well-rounded player at Stanford,” says Ganne, in the understatement of the year. “My putting has come a long way, my ball striking has gotten better every year. But I’ve always had a good headspace when I’m golfing. I think that comes from layers of experience and being resilient and storing the good memories in your head. It’s a work in progress, but I’ve gotten better and better at it.”