Alexander: Irvines Rose Zhang takes aim at U.S. Womens Open
When last we talked to Irvine’s Rose Zhang, in April of 2020, she was limited to hitting golf balls in her garage, idled because of the COVID-19 lockdown. “I have a little range area in my garage,” she said then. “I just hit balls and then putt. There’s not much you can do.”
Later in the year her left wrist started bothering her, with what was first believed to be tendinitis but turned out to be a wrist impingement, and she said earlier this year overdoing it in the garage probably had a lot to do with it.
It could have had an effect last December in Houston, when the 18-year-old Zhang missed the cut in her second appearance in the U.S. Women’s Open as an amateur. (She finished 55th in her first try in 2019.) Otherwise, she persevered and prospered in the final five months of 2020, winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur and three junior events and tying for 11th at the rescheduled ANA Inspiration last September at Mission Hills.
She is the top-ranked amateur in the world, and she is one of 30 amateurs who will tee it up Thursday in the 2021 U.S. Women’s Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. She is also rested and has a healthy wrist, which will be a good thing if she hits it in the rough this weekend. A number of experienced pros, including Michelle Wie West, Minjee Lee, Inbee Park and Paula Creamer, have noted the thickness of the rough at Olympic during pre-tournament press conferences. Having to blast out of that stuff is exactly what you don’t want to do if you have wrist issues.
Wie West, who had surgery on her right hand and wrist in 2018, noted: “Does it worry me? Yes. But the last couple of days I hit a lot of shots out of the rough, and I’m feeling pretty confident about it.” Park called the rough “really thick and long” and added, “It’s almost an automatic bogey when you go into the rough.” Creamer, who also has had a history of wrist injuries, said: “I’m not going to lie, I didn’t sit there and hit 100 balls out of the rough to see what I could do. I probably hit about 10, 15 shots over the last several days. If it gets in there I’m not going to try to be a hero.”
In other words, it’s a fairly typical USGA setup.
And when Zhang was asked at her pre-tournament media briefing Wednesday what her greatest concern was … well, you can guess.
“It’s definitely very rough for everyone,” she said, pun presumably unintended. “It’s grown a lot. … For me, it’s just being able to stay in the fairways, just as everyone has, and with the greens being so small it’s just playing really challenging.”
Zhang finished her senior year studies at Pacific Academy in Irvine and is headed to Stanford, having made her verbal commitment official when she signed her letter of intent with the Cardinal last November.
“I think, especially with school, it’s a little bit difficult trying to manage your time, and I’m just coming into this event pretty exhausted from graduation,” she said Wednesday. “I was having a birthday just last week, my 18th birthday, so that was pretty fun itself.
“But I think overall my health is pretty good. My wrist is definitely a lot better, and I’ve just been trying to take it slow and just get back into it.”
She has played in three pro events in 2021, finishing second in a Symetra Tour event in Arizona in March, 33rd in the LPGA’s Lotte Championship in Hawaii in April and 22nd in another Symetra event in Utah the following week.
In between those pro events, she came within a shot of a playoff on the final day of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur the week before the Masters, finishing third after taking a triple-bogey 8 on the 13th hole – she said she “duck-hooked” a drive, resulting in a lost ball – and then just missing a 12-foot birdie putt on 18.
Asked afterward if she remembered ever making a triple-bogey before, she said, “I can’t, honestly,” and then burst into laughter. When you’re not accustomed to failure and stuff happens, sometimes you just have to roll with it.
Many of the amateurs entered at Olympic this week are college players. Another who isn’t yet is 17-year-old Amari Avery of Riverside, a home-schooled high school junior and the 2019 California Women’s Amateur champion, who has committed to USC but has also signed up for LPGA Q-School. Avery, featured in a Netflix documentary on junior golf when she was 8 years old, is playing in her first major.
Zhang is an old hand by comparison, since this is her fifth major (three U.S. Women’s Opens and two appearances at Mission Hills in 2018 and ’20). And since an amateur has won the U.S. Women’s Open once – France’s Catherine LaCoste in 1967 – Zhang was asked if that thought had crossed her mind.
“I think everyone has a dream of winning a major, winning the U.S. Open,” she said. “For me, I think the process is more important. Definitely, on this course and on any tough venue, you really need to stay in the moment. Before you think about any of that, it’s just important to keep to your game plan, and that’s what I’m planning to do.”
There should, after all, be plenty of chances.
@Jim_Alexander on Twitter
This post first appeared on ocregister.com
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue82erqxnkaGyua3NnZyrZZmnw6q6xKxkq6ejmnq7tMCnnmaskaCytHnAoqRmmaRiwm6%2FjLCmpp2eqHqwvMSnZg%3D%3D