Five events as a pro. One win. A top-10 in each of the three majors she’s played in 2023.
Not a bad start to a pro career for Rose Zhang.
This week, the 32nd-ranked player in the Rolex Rankings takes on her first AIG Women’s Open as a professional. Last year as an amateur, she made the cut and tied for 28th.
“I know that major championships are weighed very heavily, and very much, so these are weeks that all players want to play well in,” she said Tuesday during a pre-tournament news conference at Walton Heath in Surrey, England, a venue hosting the women’s major for the first time. “But treating it as a regular event and treating yourself as just a player going out on a difficult golf course and learning how to navigate the conditions and how the course is playing, is very important for any player to be successful during that week.
“So there’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of mental toughness that you have to go through, and just learning how to be aware of that allows you to play well.”
Mental toughness is a skill she likely sharpened during her two years at Stanford, where she won the 2023 NCAA individual title. Having left school early to turn pro, however, means she still has credits to take toward her degree, something she said she plans to do in January.
“In the winter I’ll be going back to the beautiful campus and seeing my friends and being in that environment of going to class and hanging out with the team,” she said.
“I’ll be stacking up classes in the winter quarter. Potentially taking some classes in the spring quarter, and then continuing on to continue playing golf and playing on tour.”
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