It’s rare when Rose Zhang isn’t at the top of the leaderboard.
After all, the two-time USGA champion is currently the world’s No. 1 women’s amateur, won her first three starts, and hasn’t finished worse than T-10 in seven appearances for the top-ranked Cardinal. But the Irvine, California native self-admittedly didn’t have her A-game or B-game this week at the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
She can thank a freak incident to her toe for that.
“In December a person dropped a dumbbell on my foot in the gym, so that was not intended, and it didn’t heal until like recently,” explained Zhang after finishing her second round on Friday at Champions Retreat Golf Club. “So I just haven’t been practicing much. Then it’s just like the normal stress of college and the adjustment of lifestyle. So it was a little bit of everything. So I really just didn’t have much time to practice and just not being able to have those fundamentals that I usually try to have, it was definitely hard on this course.”
“I think it might be a little fractured. I actually don’t know,” Zhang said of the injury to her left pinkie toe that is starting to “feel a lot better.”
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Sitting outside the cut entering Friday’s continuation of the second round following a 7.5-hour weather delay Thursday, Zhang made birdie on her final three holes to sign for a 1-under 72, good enough for T-9 on the leaderboard before Saturday’s final round.
“I really had to grind through every single golf shot that I hit on this golf course,” explained Zhang. “Just being able to come from below the cut line to being in the cut line, I think that it really showed that I have the grit and I have the perseverance to just being able to execute regardless of where I am. So I think that really proved a lot to me.”
Zhang will have her father as her caddie for Friday afternoon’s practice round and Saturday morning’s final round at Augusta National Golf Club. The two also worked together when Zhang won the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur.
“It will be so cool,” she said of the shared experience at Augusta National. “It will be my first time having him on the bag here, so I think it’s a memory that will last a lifetime. But I think we’re just going to sink in and try to have the best time we can on Augusta National.”
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