With this being U.S. Open week and the tremors still being felt over the PGA Tour merging with the Saudi-based Public Investment Fund and LIV Golf, this might seem like odd timing.
But since her bandwagon is filling up, there’s no time like the present to contemplate what the future of women’s golf could become with a potential American superstar like we haven’t seen in a long time finally bursting on the scene.
Rose Zhang, by every meaningful measuring stick, is a legitimate game-changing presence.
She has game like nothing golf has seen in a U.S. teenaged phenom since a couple other Stanford University products, Tiger Woods and Michelle Wie West, took hype to another level.
Tiger more than lived up to his advance billing. Wie West, five LPGA wins and a U.S. Open title aside, never did.
What Zhang did last week at the Mizuho Americas Open — winning in her pro debut just after her 20th birthday, hanging on to a 54-hole lead despite not making one birdie in the final round — was pretty mind-boggling.
Not only had the feat not been done since Beverly Hanson in 1951, but Zhang beat a field that featured seven of the world’s top-10 players, ultimately beating previous major champion Jennifer Kupcho in a sudden-death playoff.
“What is happening? I just can’t believe it,” Zhang said immediately after her tap-in putt to secure the victory.
A short while later, Zhang admitted she didn’t even expect to make the cut and that “the expectation for me winning did not even cross my mind.”
Well, she can forget about that mindset from this point forward because expectations for this California kid are sure to soar at a rate that, if not approaching Tiger-like intensity, may be unprecedented for women’s golf.
Zhang is whole package
As elevated as the Wie West hype was in her early teenage years, she needed four years to win her first LPGA event and another five years to win the Women’s U.S. Open at age 24. She only won one tournament over the rest of her injury-riddled career.
It wouldn’t be hyperbole to think Zhang could match Wie’s five total wins by Thanksgiving, or at least by this time next year.
Keep in mind, this young woman broke Tiger’s record at Stanford by winning 12 tournaments in 20 events. She captured the U.S. Amateur at age 17, the U.S. Girls Junior at 18, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur at 19, as well as becoming the first female to win back-to-back NCAA titles. Tiger’s first pro result: a tie for 60th…
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