Rachel Heck doesn’t have any expectations before her final U.S. Women’s Amateur. And she has good reason.
Last week, Heck earned her Prop and Wings after graduating from the Air Force’s grueling ROTC field training at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Heck spent 17 days going through rigorous training, drills and more, all a part of her journey to becoming a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force once she graduates from Stanford.
“I didn’t have my phone, and there was no golf,” Heck said. “We woke up at 4 a.m. every day, and they even took our watches so we didn’t know what time it was.”
Come Monday, she’ll tee it up alongside 155 of the world best women’s amateur golfers at the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles. It will be her seventh appearance in the oldest women’s amateur championship in the world.
And it was those 17 days in Alabama that will help prepare her for the Women’s Amateur as well as the rest of her life, whether that’s on the golf course or serving her country.
“It was definitely the biggest mental and physical challenge I’ve ever faced,” Heck said. “It was also by far the most rewarding and transformational. I learned so much. I left with new family.”
Heck has long been known as one of the greatest amateur golfers in the United States. She reached the semifinals of the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur and won medalist honors after stroke play in 2020. In her freshman year at Stanford, Heck swept championship season, winning the Pac-12 title, the NCAA Regional and NCAA Championship en route to earning the 2021 ANNIKA Award for women’s college golfer of the year.
In the midst of all of that, she was a student at one of the most academically prestigious universities in the country while participating in the Air Force ROTC program.
Rachel Heck recently received her Prop and Wings after graduating from the Air Force’s ROTC field training. (Photo provided)
She joined the ROTC program her freshman year, deciding to give it a try. The original plan was to do it for a year and feel it out. She fell in love.
“I realized very quickly I needed something else in my life besides golf,” Heck said. “I didn’t feel like I was going to live a fulfilling life by putting all of my eggs into one basket.”
Heck had plenty of people tell her she couldn’t handle the duties of being a Division-I athlete, let alone at Stanford, and be in an ROTC program.
That made the feeling even…
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