Rose Zhang completes amateur grand slam with playoff win at 2023 Augusta National Women’s Amateur

Zhang has won the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, two USGA championships and the individual NCAA title.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rose Zhang has completed the amateur grand slam.

The world’s No. 1 amateur didn’t have her best stuff on Saturday at Augusta National Golf Club but somehow found a way to hold on for the win at the 2023 Augusta National Women’s Amateur despite a serious challenge from Jenny Bae.

Zhang entered the final round with a commanding five-shot lead but struggled early and often during the final round. Stanford’s star sophomore made double bogey on the first hole and sprayed her way around the course before signing for a 4-over 76.

“Being able to play competitively at Augusta National is certainly different from any other venue that I’ve played in. It’s funny because the last four times that I played here, I remember my scores being nowhere near under par,” said Zhang, one of three ANWA four-timers and the only one to make the cut in all four starts. “I really, really do love this golf course. Sometimes it’s just interesting that I never really get my A game when I’m out here. When I was out at (Champions Retreat) it felt so easy to me. Everything just came to me. I was making putts. I was hitting greens. But when you’re out here, one mistake, like I said before, is magnified.”

Those internal struggles opened the door for Bae, who was six shots behind Zhang at the start of the day. The Georgia fifth year was feeling the love from the patrons, and after a three-hour weather delay came out swinging. She made birdies on Nos. 9, 13 and 17 and avoided a bogey down the stretch to force a playoff with Zhang at 9 under.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt happier on a golf course that much in my life,” Bae said of her clutch birdie on the 17th. “I saw it and I marked it and I hit it. I mean, I’ve never heard such big like yelling on a golf course. It just felt amazing.”

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On the first playoff hole, both players found the fairway off the 18th tee, but Bae had the distinct advantage on the green after Zhang’s approach shot caught a slope and failed to reach the back pin. Bae’s birdie came up short and Zhang was able to lag putt her first and save par to extend the playoff to its second hole, No. 10.

Both players once again found the fairway off the tee, but this time it was Zhang with the advantage on the green after Bae blew her approach way to the left underneath a tree in the pine straw. It took two shots for Bae to find the green, and when it was Zhang’s turn to play, she hit the pin with her putt and tapped in for par and the win.

“I felt confident. But I think I just tugged it a little bit, and it went past the green into the bushes in the back,” said Bae of her approach. “I mean, I tried, but Rose, she had a fantastic day. Hat’s off to her.”

Zhang previously won the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur, 2021 U.S. Girls’ Junior and 2022 NCAA individual national championship, and her win down Magnolia Lane will cement her legacy as one of, if not the, best amateur golfers of all time.

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Tee times, how to watch final round of 2023 Augusta National Women’s Amateur

From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know about the final round of the ANWA.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — After 36 holes at nearby Champions Retreat, it’s time for some of the world’s best amateurs to make the trip down Magnolia Lane.

Famed Augusta National Golf Club plays host to the final round of the 2023 Augusta National Women’s Amateur on Saturday, where 30 players will be chasing runaway leader Rose Zhang. Stanford’s star sophomore holds a five-shot lead at 13 under and will be paired with Ole Miss senior Andrea Lignell, who sits second at 8 under.

For the first time in the event’s four-year history, the final round will be played using split tees due to isolated thunderstorms in the Saturday forecast.

From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s what you need to know for the final round of the 2023 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

Meet the ANWA fieldAmericans | Internationals

1st tee

Time Players
7:40 a.m. Latanna Stone, Hinano Muguruma
7:50 a.m. Maria Jose Marin, Crystal Wang
8 a.m. Bohyun Park, Megha Ganne
8:10 a.m. Gianna Clemente, Antonia Malate
8:20 a.m. Jiyoo Lim, Monet Chun
8:30 a.m. Hsin-Yu Lu, Cayetana Fernandez Garcia-Poggio
8:40 a.m. Jenny Bae, Caitlyn Macnab
8:50 a.m. Rose Zhang, Andrea Lignell

10th tee

Time Players
7:40 a.m. Charlotte Heath, Saki Baba
7:50 a.m. Yuna Araki, Jennie Park
8 a.m. Erica Shepherd, Emilia Migliaccio
8:10 a.m. Briana Chacon, Amanda Sambach
8:20 a.m. Caley McGinty, Ting-Hsuan Huang
8:30 a.m. Yana Wilson, Jensen Castle
8:40 a.m. Amari Avery, Megan Schofill
8:50 a.m. Lottie Woad

TV coverage

The final round will be broadcast from 12-3 p.m. ET on NBC. Golf Channel’s “Live from the Masters” will air from 10 a.m.-12 p.m.

Streaming

The final round will also be live on anwagolf.com. The presentation ceremony will also be streamed on anwagolf.com.

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Siarra Stout wins 2022 Golfweek Hoosier Amateur, sets big goals for final year of college

“I’m going to be really old,” Stout said of an impending sixth year of college golf at Lipscomb.

Siarra Stout is in a season of second chances in her golf life.

“I’m going to be really old,” Stout said of an impending sixth year of college golf at Lipscomb, “but I’ve got one more year.”

In 2015, Stout became the first commit for the upstart Charlotte women’s golf program. Last fall, she transferred to Lipscomb to finish out two remaining years of eligibility left over from a redshirt season and a COVID year.

At Lipscomb, she won her first college tournament at the Rivertowne Invitational in March 2021. This week, she picked up the title at the Golfweek Hoosier Amateur, played on the teethy Pfau Course at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Stout was 10 over for 54 holes and edged Jocelyn Bruch, a redshirt sophomore at Purdue, by a shot. Things got dangerously close over the back nine at Pfau as Stout made three bogeys after the turn, but a birdie at the par-4 16th helped lift her permanently ahead of Bruch.

“Anything can happen on this golf course but I think it just helped me kind of keep my poise as I finished off 17 and 18,” she said of that well-timed birdie.

Pfau is demanding off the tee, and Stout met that challenge by leaving herself in good positions from which to approach tricky greens. A heavy rain soaked the course after the second round, leaving the greens more receptive but the course playing longer. Still, Stout had to concentrate on placement.

And one reality remained: “Above the hole, if you were chipping, it was no bueno.”

Leading up to the Hoosier Amateur, Stout played a U.S. Women’s qualifier at Old Fort Golf Club in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, but came up four shots short of a playoff to make the field. Two years ago this week, Stout was making her U.S. Women’s Amateur debut at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland. After close calls in qualifying the previous two years, she earned her spot in the field thanks to her position in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. In 2020, COVID forced the USGA to wipe out qualifying and select a field by hand.

Stout still has flashbacks to that week and is grateful for the opportunity. Lately, she’s taken a position of gratitude for many elements of her game and the experiences it has afforded her.

“I know (golf) doesn’t define me as a person and I really rest in that now for the first time,” she said.

Maybe it’s that mindset that has allowed Stout to thrive at Lipscomb. In 10 tournaments, she never finished outside the top 25 and led the team in scoring with a 74.7 average.

Stout is a big goal setter, and has her sights set on an NCAA postseason berth before her eligibility is up. Charlotte missed advancing as a team by a single shot when she was a sophomore and when she was a junior, COVID cut short the season when the 49ers were ranked inside the top 25 in the country. Last season, Stout was second individually at the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship. An individual title would have given her a postseason berth.

And after that? Stout is leaving the next step open. She’s always envisioned a professional golf career following college, but she didn’t enter LPGA Q-School this year. If she feels like her game is in a good place in another year, she still thinks she might go that route, but she also hasn’t missed the influx of youth into college coaching of late. That’s an attractive option, too.

“I don’t know when in my season of life that I would maybe go and step into that for a little bit but I definitely think it’s a neat place to go and make an impact on people’s lives and kind of grow them more than just a player – as a person,” she said. “My heart is definitely more toward that side of things just from a ministry standpoint.

“So who knows where I’ll end up after this year.”

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During a chaotic and incredible year, college star Rachel Heck didn’t want to make ‘rash decisions’ about NIL

“I was just happy to be playing golf.”

Perhaps the best way to sum up the historic year Rachel Heck had is to listen as she discusses what went through her mind standing on the 18th green holding up the NCAA championship trophy in Scottsdale, Arizona, in May.

This had been one of her goals for so long, and an unlikely one even after years of being hailed as maybe the best women’s golf prospect to ever emerge from the Memphis area. Here she was representing Stanford, the dream school she committed to as a freshman at St. Agnes, a dream that had to be deferred even longer because COVID-19 shut down the campus in the fall of 2020.

She wondered if this would even be possible, and it had nothing to do with her driver or her putter or the rest of the prodigious skills she so carefully cultivated, starting out at Chickasaw Country Club, then Windyke Country Club and, more recently, Spring Creek Golf Course and TPC Southwind.

So this moment, a moment that further cemented her as one of the world’s best amateur golfers, became a moment of clarity as well.

Stanford University golfer Rachel Heck celebrates with her father Robert Heck after being crowned individual medalist during the NCAA Women’s Golf Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club. Joe Camporeale / USA TODAY Sports.

“I think my mindset kind of changed after COVID,” Heck said. “There was a long period where I wasn’t able to play and I missed it so much. I didn’t know when I was going to be able to play again. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to go to Stanford. So I was just happy to be playing golf.”

Heck embodied what it meant to persevere and thrive as an athlete through a pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on sports, and became one of the symbols for the new name, image, likeness era that has completely changed the notion of what a college athlete can do.

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Put simply: There was no Memphis-based sports figure who accomplished more over the past 12 months.

Heck, 20, became just the third freshman to sweep the NCAA golf postseason, winning her conference championship, her NCAA regional title, and the national championship. She was only the second freshman to win the ANNIKA Award, given annually to the best women’s Division I golfer. Her scoring average over 25 rounds of college golf (69.76) is also the lowest in NCAA history.

Heck also made it to the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur and made the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open for the second time in four years. She finished the year at No. 3 in the women’s World Amateur Golf Rankings and No. 2 in the Golfweek/Amateur.Golf.com rankings.

“All the golf accomplishments just added on to what was already an insanely special year,” Heck said. “In my day-to-day life, I don’t find happiness from knowing that I won the national championship. I find happiness from my friends and everyone at Stanford and my coach. They’re what really matters.”

Stanford University golfer Rachel Heck tees off on the 11th hole during the NCAA Women’s Golf Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club. Joe Camporeale / USA TODAY Sports.

This perspective is a boon in light of all the other opportunities afforded Heck because of her achievements.

She is an example of how a college athlete’s ability to make money off name, image, and likeness can’t simply be viewed through the prism of professionalizing college sports. It’s not just about football and men’s basketball, either. It’s also a tool to keep athletes in school.

Heck is now represented by Excel Sports Management, the same New York-based agency that works with Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas, among others. She has only signed one marketing deal at the moment with Six Star Pro Nutrition, she said, although there have been numerous other offers to sort through.

“I just wanted to do this process right, not make any rash decisions, not sign any contracts the day after NIL was finalized by the NCAA,” Heck explained.

More importantly, though, it helps offset the pressure to turn pro that a golfer of her acclaim might have previously felt.

“For me, I don’t want to go pro anyways,” Heck said. “But I think the incentive was to monetize how you’re playing. If you’re playing well, some people look at it as a waste to stay in college when you could be making money off of that now.”

“To know that you can make money while playing in college gives you the best of both worlds. I really do think it’s going to keep a lot of people in college, which is so important. If you get your degree, the Tour will always be there.”

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U.S. Women’s Amateur heads to former U.S. Open venue Chambers Bay in 2022

In 2022, female amateurs will get their turn on Chambers Bay when the course hosts the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

The U.S. Amateur Four-Ball is currently underway at Chambers Bay in University Place, Washington, host of the 2015 U.S. Open. Next year, the women will get their turn when the U.S. Women’s Amateur is hosted on the scenic course on lower Puget Sound.

Chambers Bay made its USGA hosting debut more than a decade ago when the 2010 U.S. Amateur was played there. Peter Uihlein won that event.

“Chambers Bay has become an extremely special place to the USGA, and we are ecstatic that on the heels of this week’s championship we can assure that our relationship with Pierce County and the golf course continues,” said John Bodenhamer, senior managing director, Championships. “The U.S. Women’s Amateur and Chambers Bay are sure to produce a memorable week, fitting of both the championship’s stature and the spectacular setting.”

The U.S. Women’s Amateur, the premiere women’s amateur championship, will be played for the 122nd time next year, and Chambers Bay will be a fitting backdrop. Designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., the course opened in 2007. The 250-acre course, built on the site of a former sand-and-gravel mining operation, is the centerpiece of a 930-acre park owned by Pierce County.

“The USGA has been a tremendous partner since Chambers Bay opened nearly 15 years ago,” said Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier. “To be able to continue this collaboration with another opportunity to showcase our world-class golf course to the best amateur players in the world is incredibly exciting for our entire community.”

The USGA is a week removed from announcing Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles as the site of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur, which means Chambers Bay will start a two-year stretch of West Coast championships. The Women’s Am heads to Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2024.

This year’s event will be played at Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York. Rose Zhang is the defending champion.

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