Rose Zhang: the US college golf star toppling Tiger Woods’ records

N o sooner had Rose Zhang finished off one of the more extraordinary fortnights in golf history – capping her Stanford career with an unprecedented second NCAA title, ringing in her 20th birthday, entering the professional ranks and immediately becoming the first player to win on her LPGA debut in 72 years – than she was back on a plane to Palo Alto to nail down some unfinished business.

Three more final exams. One last problem set for CS-106A, the introductory computer programming course that’s sworn her off coding for life. Moving out of her on-campus dorm and closing the book on her sophomore year.

“I have a busy week ahead of me,” Zhang told reporters on Sunday after her milestone win at the Mizuho Americas Open. “And it’s not golf-related.”

It’s been a dizzying stretch for the 20-year-old prodigy from Orange county, who shaded Jennifer Kupcho in a sudden-death playoff over the weekend at Liberty National Golf Club to become the second player ever – and first since Beverly Hanson in 1951 – to win an LPGA tournament on her first crack. At the Jersey City course in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline, Zhang bested a stacked field that included seven of the world’s top 10 players, earning $412,500 in prize money, a name-check from Tiger Woods and a place in the history books.

Zhang was already a well-known entity among golf fans before last week. She spent a record 141 weeks as the world’s top-ranked amateur golfer, winning the US Women’s Amateur in 2020, the US Girls’ Junior in 2021 and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in April. Her school-record 12 victories in 20 starts at Stanford – where she became the first ever woman to win multiple individual national college championships – was even better than Woods’