Rose Zhang Is 2023’s Blooming Golf Star

It was no mistake when the 20-year-old phenom won her first LPGA event. She has continued all year to prove she belongs.

Fourteen days.

On Monday, May 22, 2023, Rose Zhang became the first female golfer to win back-to-back NCAA Division I individual championships. It marked her 12th collegiate title for Stanford—a program record, one more than a distinguished fellow alum who goes by Tiger.

Two days later Zhang turned 20. Two days after that, on May 26, she turned professional.

On June 1, she teed it up in her pro debut. On June 4, she raised a trophy as an LPGA champion.

Zhang became the first woman since Beverly Hanson in 1951 to win in their professional debut :: Rob Schumacher/USA TODAY Sports

“It all happened in a blur,” says the Arcadia, Calif., native five months after she bagged the Mizuho Americas Open in Jersey City and immediately earned full Tour status for two years. “I would have never planned this for myself. I expected to be playing LPGA qualifying school at this moment.”

Instead, Zhang went straight from intriguing prospect to full-fledged phenom, from pushing her own bag at collegiate competitions to having her clubs carried by a veteran caddie at courses like Baltusrol, Pebble Beach and the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club. She had lined up several sponsor exemptions for LPGA tournaments, but they were no longer needed thanks to her new status. Her previous collegiate name, image and likeness contracts were rewritten as years-long endorsement deals. She landed on Time’s Next 100 list and the cover of Golf Digest, suddenly one of the highest-profile names in the sport.

If her amateur career and smashing pro debut are any indication, Zhang could be one of the best players in the world for a long time. In her rookie summer she won once, finished in the top 10 of three of the four majors she played and qualified for the U.S. Solheim Cup team. More victories seem assured, especially as Zhang adjusts to the whirlwind pace of life as a professional athlete on tour. It’s been an ongoing effort.

Building an inner circle, navigating media obligations, managing tighter windows for practice: The first five months of Zhang’s professional life haven’t been about just playing solid golf, but also learning and adapting. At the U.S. Women’s Open in July, she described her schedule as “overbearing.”

Even settling on someone to carry her clubs is its own challenge: “They say it’s harder to find a caddie than a boyfriend,” she says. (So far, she’s had two as a pro.)

What Zhang is counting on to get her through, though, is what got her into this position in the first place.

She trusts her rigorous process. Whether it was at the crack of dawn or late into the evening, she was often the first to arrive at Stanford’s state-of-the-art practice facility and the last to leave.

“The running joke on the team was that we weren’t sure if she just slept in the building. She was always there,” says Stanford golf coach Anne Walker. Zhang may keep popping up at odd hours, as she is returning to Palo Alto this winter to continue classes toward her communications degree.

Zhang’s effortlessly straight tee shots and magical short game—fine-tuned in those off-hour practice sessions—have made her a world-class player. But she also possesses the required fortitude between her ears that could make her transcendent.

“I’m pretty calm and composed, but I realized I definitely have a fighting spirit on the golf course,” she says. “Winners and second-place finishers aren’t much different in terms of game. It all comes down to how you play the course and who can handle the pressure the best.”

Zhang has already displayed an ability to grind even when her game isn’t totally there.

During the final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in April, shortly before she turned pro, Zhang was visibly struggling with her swing, and a five-shot lead was slipping away. So on Amen Corner’s iconic par-5 13th, Zhang changed her grip, moving her right hand ever so slightly underneath the club, and immediately saw an improvement in her ball striking. The idea of making such a sensitive and high-stakes adjustment mid-tournament would give most golfers the shivers, but Zhang did it with confidence and control on one of the world’s most famous courses. She went on to win in a two-hole playoff.

“Of her 12 collegiate wins, she probably won nine of them with her B game. And she probably won a handful of them with her C game,” says Walker. “She would never think, It’s just not my week. She’d just keep grinding.”

Zhang entered into a new spotlight when she hoisted her first LPGA trophy in New Jersey this summer. Then she established herself over a stretch of 14 LPGA starts across three continents. The dizzying transition and swarm of attention might have created unforeseen obstacles. But the inner force that propelled Zhang to stardom never wavered.