Rose Zhang Is Ready to Become a Global Superstar—If Golf’s Rulers Decide to Help
While some of the richest golfers in history spin their obvious money-grab by claiming they want to “grow the game,” Rose Zhang can actually do it. Zhang, the most decorated amateur woman of the modern era, made her professional debut Thursday. There is only so much any golfer can prove in a single round, especially the first round of a tournament. But Zhang provided more evidence that she is built for—and prepared for—the stage. She birdied three of the first six holes. She sank a long birdie chip on the 13th and made a long birdie putt on the 18th hole. She finished 2 under par despite some shaky iron play.
Zhang did it in the shadow of the media capital of the world, and unfortunately, I do mean shadow. For much of Zhang’s round at Liberty National, it was hard to tell if she was participating in a professional sporting event or an independent study at Stanford. Packing fans into a golf tournament is tricky. There is no local team with a built-in fan base. The LPGA says an average of 60,000 fans attended events last year, but spread that over a big piece of property for a week, and the course can seem empty.
Television shots and cultural buzz don’t tell the full story. Top LPGA players make millions on the course each year, and plenty more off it. Zhang—along with Nelly Korda, Lydia Ko, and a few other stars—have a chance to take the tour to an even higher level.
Look around. Some of college sports’ biggest NIL earners are women. Caitlin Clark is a crossover superstar. WNBA interest keeps increasing, NWSL franchise values are exploding and ESPN is selling the Women’s College World Series hard. The lesson here, for anybody open to learning it: There is a mass audience for women’s sports, as long as you invest and think creatively.
As long as golf is reimagining its structures, it would be nice if someone made a major move to actually grow the game. LIV Golf exists to enrich LIV golfers. The PGA Tour made changes primarily to make its stars wealthier and happier; increasing interest was also a goal, but if that happens, it will primarily benefit the PGA Tour.
What if the Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup were contested the same week on the same course? Instead of hosting its Women’s Amateur the week before the Masters, why doesn’t Augusta National turn the Masters into a two-week event: professional women the first week, professional men the next?
The idea here is not to throw the women a life raft. They don’t need one. Change isn’t a charitable donation; it’s an investment. A stronger, more visible women’s game would be better for everybody.
Some ideas will be anathema to die-hard golf fans—and, frankly, to golfers themselves. Some are logistically infeasible. It’s much easier for the USTA to hold men’s and women’s tennis U.S. Opens at the same time at the same venue than it would be for the USGA. (Pinehurst No. 2 hosted the men's and women's U.S. Opens in consecutive weeks in 2014 and will again in 2029.) But there are plenty of locations with multiple championship-level golf courses. The PGA Tour already holds its AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on three courses. Would it be impossible to do something like that for a joint PGA Tour-LPGA event?
I do not believe the NCAA should put the men’s and women’s Final Fours in the same city largely because most fans attend those events to watch their teams. Unless the same school makes it to both Final Fours, putting them in the same city will just make it harder to get a hotel room. But golf fans go to events to watch great players play golf. Anybody who enjoys watching Adam Scott’s perfect tempo should enjoy watching Zhang’s. The fact that the men’s and women’s games have operated so independently for so long is a multigenerational failure.
The more that people watch Rose Zhang, the more they will want to watch her. As her fan base grows, so will the sport. Everybody in golf should be rooting for her to thrive—and be thinking of ways to help her do it.