Rose Zhang, the world’s number one amateur women’s golfer for over 140 weeks, will make her professional debut this week at the Mizuho Americas Open in New Jersey. Zhang’s career, regardless of how long it lasts and what victories it yields, is expected to become a case study in athletic development, long-range planning, and skillful marketing as college athletes can now earn money in ways that were previously forbidden.
Zhang is a rare prodigy in women’s golf who has played for an American college, having attended Stanford. She has accomplished a lot since winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur, the U.S. Girls’ Junior, and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, where she posted a tournament-record score one day and broke it the next to complete a women’s amateur golf version of the career Grand Slam.
Zhang’s timeline has moved even faster than Tiger Woods’ when he competed for Stanford in the 1990s. Adidas signed her a year ago, and she’s already adorned with logos from several companies like Callaway and Delta Air Lines.
The economic possibilities in college sports have lately enticed top athletes to pursue degrees and cultivate their talents while earning money and curbing the immediate allures of turning pro. Still, Zhang’s case shows that pre-prom professionalism is not the surest path to stardom. Her stint as a college athlete has allowed her to figure “out who she really was” as a person and improve her golf game.
Zhang plans to continue her Stanford studies but will no longer be eligible to play N.C.A.A. golf. Her professional prospects had always been on her mind; she told her coach that from the beginning.
Zhang will be facing public pressure as she enters the professional ranks while women’s golf has no shortage of elite players. However, she doesn’t seem to feel particularly vulnerable to expectations, which she perceives as compliments.
After the Mizuho event, Zhang is expected to compete in the rest of the year’s major circuit for women’s golf, with no short-term expectations for performance. This year is about finding her way and seeing whether her way can work as women’s golf moves forward, shaped by women like Zhang, the prodigy who’s already accomplished so much in her young career.
