U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach: The meteoric rise of Stanford prodigy Rose Zhang

It was at Pebble Beach, the storied golf course on the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean, that 20-year-old Rose Zhang set the women’s course record with a nine-under-par 63 last fall.

She was a sophomore at Stanford and just beginning a historic year in which she became the first women’s golfer to win multiple NCAA titles.

This week, she’s returning to the scene for the U.S. Women’s Open, her third tournament since turning pro in May. Four weeks ago, she became the first woman in 72 years to win her pro debut. Last weekend at the Women’s PGA Championship, one of the five major tournaments on the LPGA tour, she was one stroke off the lead with three holes to play.

Even as former prodigy Michelle Wie West comes to Pebble to play her final tournament and the legendary Annika Sorenstam steps out of retirement at 52 to see if she’s still got it, all eyes should be on Zhang as she attempts to capture her first major in just her third tournament as a pro.

“If she comes in and is a scene-stealer, which she very well could be, it could be the confluence of a lot of really good things for golf,” said Jim Nantz, the longtime CBS broadcaster.

In April, before Zhang had turned pro, Nantz penned a column for Golf Digest in which he predicted she would win the Open. Zhang’s personal golf coach, George Pinnell, happened to see the magazine and quickly moved it out of Zhang’s view.

“Don’t let her see that,” he said.

Zhang was born in Southern California in 2003 to a family that moved from China two years earlier. The story goes that when she was 9, she picked up the right-handed golf club of her father, Henry, and started swinging it. She was left-handed.

She was a natural talent, said Pinnell, a seasoned swing coach who first met Zhang when she was 11 when another client introduced them.

The kid didn’t hit the ball unusually hard, nor did she have an unusually flawless swing. But she was compact and simple in her approach, and Pinnell had a sense she could be special.

With her dad enforcing a relentless mental focus, and her mom, Li Cai, said to have been holding the family together with her work ethic and warmth, Zhang progressed quickly under Pinnell’s watch.

By 14, she was playing alongside some of the top amateur players in the world.

At 15, she gave a verbal commitment to Stanford women’s golf coach Anne Walker.

At 17, she was the No. 1 ranked amateur in the world.

She could’ve turned pro right then, but those who know her knew there was something she needed to work on.

“I remember saying to her, ‘Hey kiddo, your golf game can compete with the best,’” said Walker, the Stanford coach. “’We’re not going to teach you anything you don’t already know.’

“But the thing I said was, ‘That’s not what you came to college for. You came to college to mature, grow and take care of things.’”

As a freshman, Zhang won four of the 10 events she played, including the NCAA tournament.

As a sophomore, she played another 10 tournaments and won all but two, including a second consecutive NCAA championship. With the last victory, she broke the school record for tournament wins held by Tiger Woods.

Nantz has seen enough golf over 35 years as a broadcaster to stamp Zhang as the real deal.

“Sometimes, when you see a prodigy like this, you have to measure how they feel with all the expectations that are heaped onto their shoulders,” Nantz said last week from his Northern California home. “She’s been able to handle all of that like the great ones do. To come out and win in her debut, then charge at the end last weekend and have a top-10 in her first major, and to know her history here at Pebble Beach, I think it’s shaping up really nicely. It’s brought a lot of attention to a very important Women’s Open.”

Nantz was careful not to use the T-word, but Tiger himself tweeted his amazement after Zhang won her debut at the Mizuho Americas Open. The Stanford aces have since begun forming a friendship, according to those close to her, and the comparisons have become inevitable.

“There’s one name, I’m trying not to drop it here, but he went to Stanford and there were all the same expectations,” Nantz said. “The expectations were met and even exceeded. It’s easy to draw those connections, but I’m trying to refrain from saying she’s going to be to women’s golf what Tiger has been to men’s golf. It’s just not fair to do that to someone. But she’s given every indication that she’s unflappable and unbothered.”

Zhang’s game is less overpowering than it is well-rounded.

“There’s no weakness, I want all of it,” said Rachel Kuehn, a top amateur at Wake Forest. “But it has to be her mental game. The way she manages situations and the golf course is incredible.”

Zhang routinely says she’s not the best golfer on the course, just the one who makes the fewest mistakes. Walker said she’s also heard Zhang say, “I’m not good at one thing, I’m just pretty good at everything.”

“She’s exceptional at everything, top-1% in all categories,” Walker said. “But what she means is some people have once-in-a-lifetime swings. They’re textbook, how gorgeous they are. Like a piece of artwork.”

Zhang may be less artful, but her relentless play strikes fear in her competitors.

“Her method has always been that she comes from behind and out of nowhere on the back nine,” Pinnell said.

While she might not be the type to leap in the air and pump her fist like Tiger when he won his first U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 2000, she shows her personality off the course.

“She’s really funny,” said Sadie Engelmann, a Stanford teammate. “She’ll say some of the dumbest things and it’s absolutely hilarious. She’s so sweet. She’s just a really good person.”

After Stanford won the NCAA title last year, Zhang told her teammates, “This could never top an individual win.”

And after Zhang’s last match with Stanford this spring, every person on the team began to cry.

“It’s not about not having her to play well for us anymore,” Engelmann said. “It’s about not having this amazing person on our team anymore. She was a lot of the reason our team was so close.”

Before Zhang’s first tournament as a pro in early June, Walker was rushing from the airport with her 8-year-old daughter, Emma, to arrive in time for Zhang’s 11 a.m. press conference. She rolled into a room full of reporters and TV cameras at 10:59 a.m.

Unaware of the gravity of the moment, Emma ran up to Zhang, who put life on hold to interact with the 8-year-old as if they were the only two people in the room.

“She’s done it with my daughter and with plenty of kids,” Walker said.

Zhang won the tournament in a playoff. She had appearances on the Today Show and ESPN’s SportsCenter the next day.

She hardly slept. She was up late chatting with Stanford teammates.

“What just happened?” asked Zhang, who plans to stay at Stanford until she completes her degree in communications.

At Pebble Beach this week, some of her Stanford teammates will watch from the gallery.

“What she’s doing for golf, she’s giving so many little girls a role model,” said Kuehn. “She’s giving a lot of people a reason to go watch LPGA tournaments. She’s incredibly interactive with people out there. She’s gracious in good golf and bad golf. She’s inspiring and humble.

“The person she is complements the golfer she is. And she’s exactly what professional golf needs right at this moment.”