A month ago, amateur golfer Megha Ganne found herself in a 3-for-1 playoff to qualify for her second career U.S. Open.

Now, she holds a share of the lead with Mel Reid after the first round Thursday.

The 17-year-old recorded six birdies and led outright until a dropped shot on 18. She became the sixth amateur in U.S. Open history to shoot 67 or lower.

Ganne is also the first amateur to lead after a round at the U.S. Women’s Open since 2006, when Jane Park did it after Round 1 at the Newport Country Club.

The high school junior qualified for the U.S. Open two years ago at just 15 years old and missed the cut. This time around, things are different.

“I think the first time is nerve-racking for anybody and meeting your idols and being on the stage for the first time,” she said. “But the second time around, even the practice rounds, I wasn’t as nervous. I felt like I could come here and just play my game instead of soaking that all in.”

Ganne intends to play golf at Stanford after graduating high school next year. She might have the opportunity to play alongside current freshman Rachel Heck, who became the school’s first individual national champion a few weeks ago.

First, Ganne will try to become just the second amateur to win the U.S. Women’s Open after Catherine Lacoste made history in 1967. Ganne is playing in the second group out on Friday.

Michelle Wie West didn’t think she wanted to come back to golf. 

Chronic wrist injuries and pregnancy had all but solidified the golfer’s decision to step away from the sport. With other opportunities on the horizon and motherhood approaching, she told the New York Times she felt it was a natural pivot point.

But then Wie West learned she was going to be having a daughter and her feelings shifted. 

In February, a month before her official return, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, appeared on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, where he discussed being paired with Wie West at a 2014 pro-am charity golf fundraiser. He said that the “gorgeous” Wie West’s putting stance was attracting photographers, who, he said, “were trying to take pictures of her panties.”

A day later, after properly channeling her “disgust and outrage” Wie West took to social media in response.

“What this person should have remembered from that day was the fact that I shot 64 and beat every male golfer in the field leading our team to victory,” Wie West wrote. “I shudder thinking that he was smiling to my face and complimenting me on my game while objectifying me and referencing my ‘panties’ behind my back all day.”

“My putting stance six years ago was designed to improve my putting stats,” Wie added, noting that she won the US Open that year. “NOT as an invitation to look up my skirt!”

According to Wie’s discussion with the New York Times, Giuliani’s comments furthered Wie West’s reasons for a comeback, as she realized that her return to competition would give her an opportunity to address inequities and ignorance. 

Back from retirement and with a mission on her mind, Wie West is set to tee off in the U.S. Women’s Open at 4:40 p.m. ET for the first time since 2018.

Pine Valley, welcome to 2021.

The board of America’s top-ranked golf course voted unanimously to allow female members for the first time in its 108-year history.

The New Jersey club announced the news to its members Friday in an email obtained by Golf Digest.

In the e-mail, club president Jim Davis wrote that Pine Valley would immediately begin considering women for membership and that he expects to have the club’s first women members admitted by the end of the year. Previously, women were only permitted to play the course as guests on Sunday afternoons.

Golf clubs have notoriously been reticent to embrace gender equality.

Augusta National, home to the Masters, didn’t start accepting female members until 2012.

In his letter to Pine Valley club members, Davis categorized the move to embrace women members as long overdue, adding that the change will put the golf course “on the right side of history.”