By Rich Chrampanis
PENDLETON, Ore. – Megha Ganne made headlines across the world as an amateur. That chapter is closed, and now the Holmdel product has her first professional trophy.
Ganne beat Thailand’s Cholcheva Wongras in a two-hole playoff to win the Wildhorse Ladies Golf Classic in Pendleton, Oregon, claiming her first Epson Tour title. Both players finished 72 holes at 19 under par and traded birdies on the first extra hole before Ganne closed it out with a par on the second as Wongras made bogey.
“It feels great, really cool to have a professional win, which is something that’s been on the bucket list,” Ganne said after the event.
The win is worth $37,500 and moves Ganne to 15th in the Epson Tour’s Race for the Card, the list that sends the Top 15 finishers to the LPGA Tour for 2027, with the Top 10 getting the strongest playing status.
Ganne started the final round two shots off the lead and had a feeling that it would take a low score to win the event.
“I actually called at the beginning of the week, the winner would probably be 20 under,” she said. “Didn’t think that was going be myself that got to that number, but that was kind of the goal that I had set in my mind.”
The sudden-death finish also provided some deja vu. Ganne won last year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur in Oregon, too.
“I won the U.S. Amateur in Oregon, and this type of scenery kind of reminded me of it with how far out you could see, so I was having a little deja vu there, and the sudden death was fitting,” she said.
While Ganne played a strong game, the exterior belied some anxieties. “My nerves are probably a little bit higher than I’d like to admit. Definitely more nervous in this than I have been in the past and other big moments I’ve played… but I definitely relied on prior experience I had in sudden death playoffs, and that one-versus-one environment is something that I’d like to think that I have a little bit of an edge in.”
Ganne made a name for herself as a teenager at Holmdel High School. She first grabbed national attention in 2021 as a 17-year-old high school junior in the U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club, where she shared the first-round lead and went on to finish tied for 14th with low amateur honors. She built on that with a decorated amateur career: the 2025 U.S. Women’s Amateur title, an NCAA team championship with Stanford (where she clinched the title-winning point against USC), and a run of amateur wins dating back to a 2017 New Jersey Junior PGA Championship.
Ganne turned pro this summer at the U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera after finishing No. 1 in the LPGA’s collegiate rankings, which locked up her Epson Tour membership. The Wildhorse win could be a springboard to LPGA Tour status. It’s only a matter of time before Ganne will play with the world’s best on a regular basis.
The article originally appeared in the September 3 – 9, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
