Kaleiya Romero: The Sister Behind the Bag Chasing Her Own LPGA Card

Quick Answer: Kaleiya Romero is a 24-year-old professional golfer from San Jose, California, and the older sister of Kiara Romero, who turned pro herself in August 2026. A four-time All-WCC golfer at Pepperdine, Kaleiya won her first Epson Tour title in June and sits second in the Race for the Card, chasing an LPGA card of her own.

Type “Kaleiya Romero” into Google and there’s a decent chance you got there by searching for someone else first. Her younger sister Kiara spent the past year as the world’s No. 1 amateur, a three-time All-American at Oregon, and the kind of prospect golf writers build entire features around. Kaleiya built her own path first, quietly, four years before Kiara ever teed it up in college.

She just doesn’t get asked about it as often.

That’s changing fast. In June 2026, the sisters played the same U.S. Women’s Open for the first time, one of only nine sister pairings in the championship’s history. Two weeks later, Kaleiya won her first professional tournament. Then, in August, Kiara turned pro too, and nearly won her first start.

This is Kaleiya’s story, the one that started years before her sister’s headlines did, told with the numbers nobody else has bothered to pull together in one place.

Who Is Kaleiya Romero? Quick Facts

She stands 5-foot-8, the same height listed on her Pepperdine roster page four years running. Her Epson Tour bio had her at 23 back in April and 24 by August, which puts her birthday somewhere in that window. Nobody’s published the exact date. For a golfer just now hitting her stride as a pro, it barely matters.

The Romero Family: Golf’s Newest Sibling Trio

Ask about Kaleiya Romero’s sister and you’re really asking about a family act. Search “Kiara and Kaleiya Romero” and most of what comes up is footage from that shared U.S. Women’s Open week. There’s a lot more to it than one tournament.

She’s the oldest of three: Kaleiya, then Kyreece, then Kiara. Their parents, Rick Romero and Maricel Romero, raised all three in San Jose without letting them have cell phones, a detail Kaleiya has brought up more than once when explaining why golf became the family’s default activity.

Their grandparents gave each kid a set of clubs when they were young. That’s the whole origin story. No junior golf academy, no swing coach at age five, just clubs from grandpa and grandma and a lot of open afternoons.

Kyreece played golf at Oregon too, and he’s caddied for both sisters at different points, including on Kaleiya’s bag at the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open. These days he’s finishing his degree online so he can caddie full-time for Kiara, who turned pro in August after winning a second straight Mark H. McCormack Medal as the sport’s top amateur. That medal was worth the 20th and final point she needed for an LPGA card through the Tour’s Elite Amateur Pathway program.

Here’s the part that gets lost in the noise around Kiara. Kaleiya was the first Romero to play Division I golf, the first to turn pro, and the first to win a professional tournament. Kiara owns the deeper trophy case, four All-American seasons and a U.S. Girls’ Junior title among them. Kaleiya’s owned a pro paycheck since February, six months before her sister cashed in her own amateur status.

From Pepperdine Standout to Oregon Graduate Assistant

Romero’s college career doesn’t get enough credit outside Malibu. She earned All-West Coast Conference first-team honors in all four seasons at Pepperdine, a feat only one other player in program history has matched. As a junior she won the WCC individual title, shooting 7-under 209, and as a sophomore she captured her first college crown at the 2021 Dick McGuire Invitational with a 10-under 206, still one of the best 54-hole scores in Pepperdine women’s golf history.

Her career scoring average finished at 74.27, 11th-best in program records. She majored in psychology and picked up four straight WGCA All-American Scholar honors along the way, carrying a 3.593 GPA to go with the golf.

Then came the move almost nobody in her position would make. Instead of turning pro straight out of Pepperdine in 2024, Romero took a graduate assistant job on Kiara’s Oregon coaching staff. She barely practiced her own game that year, too busy setting up range sessions and hauling equipment for a Ducks team that made the NCAA semifinals.

Most golfers who step away from competitive reps for a full year come back rusty. Romero came back better. By her own account, the year at Oregon fixed something mental, not mechanical: she stopped chasing the “extra stuff” she thought a pro needed and went back to trusting what already worked.

That’s not a small adjustment. It’s the difference between a player who grinds through Q-school every winter and one who wins in her rookie season.

Kaleiya Romero’s 2026 Rookie Season on the Epson Tour

Romero turned pro in early 2026 and opened her season with three straight top-15 finishes in Florida. Here’s every result from her rookie year, pulled directly from the Rolex Rankings database, laid out in a way you won’t find on any competitor’s page.

The win came at Sweetgrass Golf Club in Harris, Michigan, on June 28, and it didn’t come easy. Romero had lost a playoff the week before at the Great Lakes Championship. A week later at Island Resort, she opened with a 7-under 65 that included her first career hole-in-one, an 8-iron from 154 yards on the par-3 12th.

She birdied the 72nd hole to force a second straight sudden-death playoff, then won it with a two-putt eagle from the fairway on the very first extra hole. “Super happy, kind of relieved,” she said afterward. Her caddie that week was her boyfriend, Ty Bauge, whose last name sounds like “bogey,” which is either the best or worst detail a caddie can have depending on how the round goes.

Losing a playoff one week and winning one the next is the kind of validation a rookie needs more than the win itself. Anybody can get hot for four rounds. Backing it up under identical pressure a week later is a different skill entirely, and it’s the one that actually predicts whether a rookie sticks around on tour.

Kaleiya and Kiara Romero Make History at the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open

Kaleiya Romero qualified for her first U.S. Women’s Open by shooting 5-under 139 at Arizona Country Club in Phoenix on April 27, 2026. She’d been the first alternate the year before and missed out entirely. This time she got in on her own number.

That set up something rare. When the 81st U.S. Women’s Open began at Riviera Country Club on June 4, both Romero sisters were in the field, one of only nine sets of sisters ever to compete in the same U.S. Women’s Open. Kiara had her college coach, Derek Radley, on the bag. Kaleiya had her brother Kyreece, a rising senior on Oregon’s men’s team.

Kaleiya shot 71-74-73-73 for a 7-over 291 and finished T-49, comfortably inside the cut line. Kiara opened slower but rallied to finish T-6 as low amateur, in her home state, at a course she grew up watching on TV. When Kaleiya climbed the steps at Riviera’s 18th green to sign her second-round card, her former boss, Coach Radley, was waiting with a hug. “I’m so proud of that kid,” he said.

Can Kaleiya Romero Earn Her LPGA Card in 2026?

The Epson Tour hands out 15 LPGA Tour cards each year to the top finishers in its season-long Race for the Card standings. As of mid-August, Romero sits second, with 1,636.942 points built almost entirely on that Island Resort win, a runner-up finish at the Great Lakes Championship, and a string of top-15s most rookies don’t string together in a full season.

She’s sitting comfortably inside the number with several events still left on the calendar. Golf doesn’t guarantee anything until the points stop counting, and a cold closing stretch has derailed better positions than hers before. But a rookie sitting second in her first year on tour, with a win already banked, is about as safe a bet as this level of golf offers.

Kaleiya Romero on Instagram

Romero posts under @kaleiyaromero, where her bio reads “Professional Golfer, Pepperdine Alum, UO Grad” alongside American and Philippine flags, a nod to her Filipino-American heritage. She’s built a following of roughly 4,500 across 87 posts, modest for a golfer who just won her first professional title and sits second on tour. That number will almost certainly climb if she keeps playing the way she played this June. She also posts occasionally under the handle @kaleiya9 on X.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the parents of Kiara Romero, the golfer?

Kiara Romero’s parents are Rick Romero and Maricel Romero. They’re also the parents of Kaleiya Romero and Kyreece Romero, making all three Romero siblings competitive golfers who grew up together in San Jose, California.

Who is a famous female Mexican golfer?

Lorena Ochoa is the most famous female golfer in Mexican history. She won 27 LPGA Tour titles, including two majors, and held the world No. 1 ranking before retiring in 2010 at the peak of her career.

Who is the Puerto Rican female golfer who currently plays for the LPGA?

Maria Torres became the first golfer from Puerto Rico to earn full LPGA Tour membership, doing so in late 2017 for the 2018 season, and she’s remained a Tour member since.

Who is the youngest female pro golfer?

Thailand’s Atthaya Thitikul became the youngest golfer, male or female, ever to win a professional tournament when she captured the 2017 Thailand Championship on the Ladies European Tour at 14 years, 4 months, and 19 days old. On the LPGA Tour specifically, Lydia Ko holds the record, winning the 2012 Canadian Women’s Open at 15 years and 4 months old.

How old is Kaleiya Romero?

Kaleiya Romero is 24 years old as of August 2026, according to her official Epson Tour player bio.

How tall is Kaleiya Romero?

Kaleiya Romero is 5-foot-8, a height confirmed by her official Pepperdine University roster page.

Has Kaleiya Romero won on the Epson Tour?

Yes. Romero won the 2026 Island Resort Championship presented by Delta County Chamber, her first professional victory, beating Liqi Zeng in a sudden-death playoff at Sweetgrass Golf Club.

The Bottom Line

Kaleiya Romero spent years being the golfer people mentioned in the same sentence as her sister. That sentence is getting harder to write without her own name carrying equal weight.

A four-year All-WCC run at Pepperdine, a graduate assistant detour that somehow made her better, and a rookie season that’s already produced an Epson Tour win and a U.S. Women’s Open cut. If she holds her spot in the Race for the Card, she’ll be teeing it up on the LPGA Tour next season, and the family headlines might finally split evenly between the two Romero sisters.

Curious how Romero’s win compares to a genuine long shot? Read up on real hole-in-one odds to see just how rare her Island Resort ace actually was. And for another rising LPGA name breaking through in 2026, check out our profile on Ruoning Yin.