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How a No Cell Phone policy helped set the tone for Oregon golf’s domination.
EUGENE — It was blustery on the second hole of Palos Verdes Golf Course, a 200-yard Par 3 sandwiched by a pair of bunkers, when Kaleiya Romero found herself in a place she never would have imagined.
Just a year ago, Romero finished up her four-time first-team All-WCC career at Pepperdine. She graduated in the spring, knew she wanted to take a year off to focus on her game, and was eventually talked into the Hey, why don’t you get your master’s at Oregon and help us out as a GA? track by her younger sister Kiara, a freshman all-American for the Ducks in 2024.
It seemed like a good plan to Kaleiya, who figured she could continue her education and get some practice in before dipping her toes into the professional golf waters.
Plus, the Graduate Assistant thing couldn’t be that stressful.
Kaleiya would help with getting players what they needed, have equipment ready and generally be an extra ear for a program that finished in the NCAA semifinals in 2024.
But things changed a bit once Kaleiya took the gig and that leisurely GA role turned into something more.
With assistant coach Krissy Carman expecting a baby girl due in April, Kaleiya has been tabbed by head coach Derek Radley as an apt stand-in, which led to Kaleiya traveling with the team to Southern California and positioning her on that Par 3 as the coach on hand last month.
“It’s probably one of the hardest holes at PV and all the girls are asking me questions and I was a little nervous,” Kaleiya said. “But I think I got the hang of it. Just asking them what their process was and just making sure they’re on the right track and agreeing with them so they’re confident when they step up on the tee.”
Confidence is not a trait the Romeros — or this women’s golf team — lack. The Ducks finished second at that Therese Hession Regional Challenge, charging with a final day low-round of 12-under that set the table for a historic performance a week later in Palm Springs. At the Alice & John Wallace Classic, the Ducks shattered program records by shooting 34-under as a team and winning by 23 strokes. On Tuesday, the No. 3 Ducks stayed hot as they completed a second-place finish at the Juli Inkster Invitational, finishing behind No. 1 Stanford.
Freshman and sophomore Karen Tsuru have won two of the three individual tournament titles the Ducks have entered. Kiara, the No. 7-ranked amateur in the world, has finished second, second and sixth this spring.
In Oregon’s quest to claim its first national championship in program history, the Ducks are out of the gates quickly despite thanks to a starting five comprised of only underclassmen.
“Knowing that we’re younger than most of the teams out there frees us up to go out and play our game,” Kiara said. “There’s less pressure when we’re these young underdogs going up against these seniors and juniors.”
Plus, Kiara has been going up against her older siblings her entire life. Kaleiya, middle brother Kyreece and Kiara grew up in a household in San Jose that didn’t allow the kids to have cell phones. Rick Romero and Maricel Romero saw more benefits in their kids being outside. And after the grandparents gifted the kids sets of clubs, there was rarely a day you couldn’t find the trio on one of the local golf courses.
“I feel like a lot of kids tend to lean towards just sitting on their phones on social media or playing video games,” Kaleiya said. “But not having a phone — or pretty much any internet — for most of our childhood, we had to go out and do something to entertain ourselves. Golf is what we turned to a lot.
“We all just really loved it. And the fact that all three of us played, we could do it after school and we basically played every day starting from when I was like nine.”
And it was rarely just for the heck of it.
“There was never a day where we just played for fun,” Kiara said. “There was always some match with something on the line. We’re playing for ice cream, for chores.”
For someone like Kiara, who hated doing her own laundry, that was enough incentive to get really good, really fast.
“Kiara is one of the best long iron players I’ve been around,” Radley said. “Anytime a female can hit it high is such an advantage because they can go at tucked pins, and I mean she hits five irons from like 185 to the moon. There’s just nobody else in college golf that can do it.”
This is when Radley made sure to note that Kiara is just 18 years old. She came to Oregon in the fall of 2023, reclassifying to join college a year early and enroll with Kyreece, who plays for the men’s team.
Kiara’s game was so far beyond her years that Radley often had some jarring reminders of her youth. He said he’ll never forget their first road trip last year when he collected IDs from his team at the Eugene Airport, just to have Kiara meet him at the gate counter.
She didn’t have one.
“I was 17,” Kiara said. “I had never had to use an ID to fly on a plane.”
She has one now, though she hates having to remember it every time she flies. That’s where it helps having her siblings around. Kiara and Kyreece lived with each other last year. Kiara and Kaleiya live together this year. When they go home for break, all they do is golf together. And as Kiara makes a run at another All-American season while harboring aspirations of one day being No. 1 in the world, having big sister close by has paid dividends.
“She really just helps with our mental state,” Kiara said of Kaleiya. “She just keeps it light and doesn’t put too much pressure on us. She always has a good smile out there and is keeping us happy.”
Granted, Kaleiya said she knows how and when to push her younger sister. As the Romeros and the Ducks lock in for what they hope is a deep run through the NCAAs, Kaleiya said her challenge will be honing that connection with the rest of the roster.
“I’ve been around a lot of college coaches and I know what I would want,” Kaleiya said. “So when they told me when I got back from break that I would be going to all the events, it was just, ‘Oh, OK. We’re going to have to figure this out sooner rather than later.’”
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor
