Ten days from today is the sixth anniversary of Austin Ernst’s only LPGA Tour victory, a playoff win at the 2014 Cambia Portland Classic. If the South Carolina native has her way, she’ll celebrate that anniversary by adding a second win to her tally. Ernst shot a second-round 1-under 70 on Friday and sits in solo second at Even heading into the weekend of the AIG Women’s Open.
“I figured a few things out the last few weeks. I've been a little rusty with the start, but it's been really close to being really good,” said Ernst, who had four birdies and three bogeys on Friday. “I feel like last week helped me playing in a little bit of wind, playing links golf and figured out a few things kind of that I needed to work on and I took that the beginning of this week and I felt like at the start of this week my game was definitely trending in the right direction.”
Since that win in 2014, Ernst has been searching for the next step in her LPGA Tour career. She made her Solheim Cup debut for USA in 2017 but has not notched a top-10 finish since a tie for 10th at the 2019 Honda LPGA Thailand. She has never finished better than 56th in her seven previous AIG Women’s Open appearances.