SOUTHERN PINES, NORTH CAROLINA | She never grows tired of telling her family story, even on the biggest stage in women’s golf after a round that has Megan Khang in contention going into the weekend at the U.S. Women’s Open presented by ProMedica.
“I will forever be grateful for everything my parents did and what they went through and the sacrifices they made to give me every opportunity,” Khang said to a couple of reporters after a 67 on Friday that put her within striking distance of her first career victory going into the weekend. Those sacrifices included her father, Lee, quitting his job as a mechanic to teach Megan golf and drive her to competitions in their home region of New England. But it is also much more.
The Khangs are Hmong, a proud and ferocious mountain people from Laos and southern China. They are warriors who sided with the Americans during the CIA’s secret wars in Laos and Cambodia. As a result, many were given passage to the States after the Vietnam War. When Lee was a small child, he saw the ravages of that war. Family members were killed in horrific ways, images a child never forgets.
At age seven, Lee and other family members escaped across the Mekong River into Thailand, 12 Khangs in a boat built for six. From there, the journey took them to America where they settled in Massachusetts where Megan was eventually born.
Now, the 24-year-old Khang is in her seventh season on the LPGA Tour, a career that has seen slow but steady progress. All she needs now is a win. What better place for that breakthrough than Pine Needles? And what better event than this major?
“When in doubt, par is never going to hurt you at a U.S. Women's Open,” Khang said of her game plan going into the weekend well inside the top-10. “Just kind of keep it steady out there and not get ahead.”
Khang has always been feisty and aggressive. Sometimes that has helped her. Other times it has kept her from closing out wins when she was in contention. Still, everything about Khang’s game is trending in the right direction. Her last two stroke-play finishes have been a tie for sixth at the Palos Verdes Championship presented by Bank of America and a tie for third at the Cognizant Founders Cup. And she has had four top-10s in majors since 2019.
Much of that stems from honing her game at the professional level. But mental maturity is also a factor.
“I felt like I started getting better at that at the U.S. Women's Open (at Champions Club) in Houston (in 2020) because those greens were so big and there was a lot of lag putting out there,” Khang said. “That's when I was like, ‘Okay, I'm going to have to deal with lag putting. I'm good enough that it's not a big deal.’ Now I just (have to) kind of take advantage of it when I can because my game is there. I just have to trust myself.”
Believing you belong and getting out of your own way are some of the toughest things to do in golf, far more difficult to figure out than grooving a powerful swing or smooth stroke. Eventually, you have to look at a leaderboard, see your name up top, and feel like everything is right with the world.
“Leaderboards are out there everywhere,” Khang said of Pine Needles, which does indeed have an abundance of boards around the course. “At the end of the day I know that if I do my job out there and put in my best effort, scores will come, birdies will come, and results will come. As long as I'm trying my best to limit my mistakes and put my best game out there, everything will come at the right time.
“I have never not looked at the leaderboards. I'm so curious. But I have to get better about that where I shouldn't let it affect me. But I think as I've grown up out here to where (I know and accept that) you can't control what everyone else is going to do. You just have to take care of what you can do yourself.
“There's not much you can do with other people. They're going to play their good golf. You have to play your good golf. Then, we'll see what happens at the end.”
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