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LPGA Black Desert Championship: Round 2

After nearly a lifetime of anticipation, Ali Mulhall’s LPGA Tour debut came and went in a 24-hour cycle. Those 144 shots all happened quickly, from the opening drive Thursday to the closing birdie putt Friday at Black Desert Resort.

Next stop: Hardscrabble Country Club.

This is the professional life Mulhall has chosen at age 19. She’ll go from the glamour of competing in the LPGA Tour’s Black Desert Championship, in the spectacular setting of her adopted hometown of Ivins, back to the Women’s All Pro Tour next week in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Her first appearance at the highest level of women’s pro golf lasted 36 holes, with a much more satisfying ending than beginning. Playing via a sponsor invitation, the Utah Junior Golf Association graduate shot 75-69 to finish at even par, missing the weekend rounds by three strokes.

2024 Utah Women’s State Amateur runner-up Ali Mulhall finished birdie-birdie and even par 144 at the LPGA Tour’s Black Desert Championship.

Mulhall made five birdies and three bogeys Friday, the opposite results of Thursday. One errant iron shot and a trio of three-putt greens in the second round kept her from advancing, yet she proved something to herself.

Having it all begin and end within 24 hours “feels weird, definitely, but I’m proud of myself, the way I finished,” said Mulhall, the 2024 Women’s State Amateur runner-up. “My game is definitely ready; I showed that today. My mental game was better today. I feel like I can play out here, I’m just young.”

Skipping to the end, Mulhall birdied her last two holes of the day, starting with a tap-in on the par-3 No. 8. That followed a frustrating three-putt par on No. 7, after she hit the green with a second shot from 255 yards.

Chris Mulhall, her father and coach, jumped onto the shuttle taking the players and caddies up the hill to the next tee. “I got in the cart with her on purpose,” he said, “just because I knew she was going to be fired up. Get her calmed down, before she hit that other shot. I was proud of her, because she stuffed it. So it was great.”

Mulhall hit 16 greens in regulation in the second round, including two par-5s in two. She hit five drivers off the tee, compared with three in the first round.

“We call it controlled aggression; be aggressive where I can, where it makes sense,” she said.

The setup for the Black Desert Championship didn’t play to her strengths. LPGA Tour officials shortened the longer par-4s, while playing the driveable par-4s and the par-5s longer than expected. “All three of those (decisions) affected Ali,” Chris Mulhall said.

And while Ali Mulhall concluded that the experience was “more than I ever could have hoped for,” the reality is she hoped to play two more rounds. She came just close enough to making the cut to lament not performing better in the first round. That’s the mixed blessing of Friday’s improvement.

“I think she just needs to get comfortable,” her father said. “Her body language and process today was much better.”

Mulhall said she learned a lot from observing the players in her group, Hinako Shibuno and Kate Smith-Stroh, who each made the cut. She witnessed Shibuno’s second-round 65 that featured back-to-back eagles on Nos. 13 and 14, including a spinning approach shot from 70 yards.

So she’ll return to the WAPT, where she earned a total of $2,491 in the schedule’s first three events in Louisiana and Mississippi. Mulhall will go to Arkansas with good feelings, saying, “I honestly feel like this gave me more confidence. … I’m new to the professional world, so just learning as much as I can this first year and then, hopefully, it just gets better as the year goes on.”

And as she targets the annual LPGA Tour Qualifying process in September, she’ll appreciate the sponsor invitation from Patrick Manning, the Managing Partner who made her an ambassador of Black Desert Resort. In honor of her grandfather, Patrick Mulhall, and Manning, she wore a “PM2” logo on her shirtsleeve during the tournament.

Black Desert Championship Leaderboard.

LPGA Tour Black Desert Championship round 2 recap written by Fairways Media senior writer Kurt Kragthorpe. Photos by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson.