The Romero family is no stranger to golf, and it’s Kaleiya’s time to shine. A rookie on the Epson Tour this year, she just won her first professional title at the 2026 Island Resort Championship presented by Delta County Chamber.
After almost sealing the deal last week at the Great Lakes Championship in a playoff that Lauren Olivares ultimately won, Romero knew she had what it took to not only put herself into contention again, but also how to handle her nerves in a playoff situation.
“Super happy, kind of relieved,” said Romero. “Last week I was nervous. I think I haven’t been in contention in a while just
because I had taken a year off from competing. Yeah, so just to be back, to have another opportunity to try again and
come out on top, it just means a lot and super happy.”
Romero also walked away with the top prize in the Pure Michigan Cup, which also paid out prizes to the other two Michigan stretch winners this month, Lauren Olivares and Lauryn Nguyen.
Romero began the day one back of leader Kelly Xu, the Stanford standout making her professional debut this week. Liqi Zeng was also in the mix, actually leading the event going into the final hole. Romero birdied the 18th hole to stay in it and ultimately sunk a 10-foot eagle putt on the first playoff hole to earn her first Epson Tour title.
Romero will not only remember this week as her first professional win, but she’ll also remember her hole-in-one on during the first round.
Referring to her eagle during that round as well, she said, “Yeah, well my approach shots have been pretty good the last few tournaments and I don’t know what happened but
two of them went in the hole today. So yeah, I mean I hit good shots and then they like disappeared.”
Another fun storyline that came out of the week was Anne Chen. She shot a 62 (-10) to set the new tournament record, breaking her own former record here from 2024. That final round was enough to push her to T6 for the week.
The Epson Tour will take a one-week break before returning for their next stretch of events. They will tee off at the Four Winds Invitational in South Bend, IN, on July 10, 2026.
