Stanford’s Rose Zhang first to win consecutive NCAA titles

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Rose Zhang received nearly all the pieces there’s in novice golf.

With a flawless efficiency on the NCAA Championships, the Stanford sophomore now has finished one thing nobody else has, not even Lorena Ochoa: win back-to-back nationwide titles.

Zhang shot a bogey-free, 4-under 68 on Monday to turn out to be the primary girl to win a number of nationwide titles and tie the NCAA file for wins in a season.

“I used to be actually lucky to play similtaneously Lorena Ochoa and I felt her greatness was unmatched,” Stanford coach Anne Walker mentioned. “Rose Zhang actually jogs my memory numerous Lorena.”

Zhang turns 20 on Wednesday already with a full novice resume. She received the U.S. Girls’s Beginner in 2020, the U.S. Women’ Junior in 2021 and the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Beginner final month.

Beginning 4 photographs again, Zhang made up floor and was up one when San Jose State’s Lucia Lopez-Ortega made consecutive bogeys. Zhang saved par on Grayhawk Golf Membership’s par-4 seventeenth gap with a fragile chip and tapped in for par on No. 18.

Zhang completed at 10-under 278 over 72 holes to match Ochoa’s NCAA data for wins in a season (eight) and profession (12). Her 12 wins breaks the Stanford file for males or girls, held by Tiger Woods and three others.

Zhang helped Stanford safe the highest seed heading into Tuesday’s match play in its bid to win consecutive nationwide titles.

“While you’re chasing from behind, you actually do not know what is occurring till all the pieces’s accomplished,” Zhang mentioned. “To return off of 18 and everybody saying you simply received, that is one thing that I would not actually have imagined beginning out the day.”

Lopez-Ortega closed out her spherical with a birdie to shoot 71. She tied for second at 9 below with Southern California’s Catherine Park, who missed a brief birdie putt on the par-5 18th that might have tied her with Zhang.

Zhang had a record-breaking freshman season, setting the NCAA’s single-season scoring mark at 69.68 whereas profitable particular person and group championships. She has been even higher this season, arriving within the desert with a 68.70 scoring common.

Zhang’s win is her eighth in 10 begins this season, together with the Pac-12 Championships and the NCAA Pullman Regional.

Zhang made up a four-shot deficit rapidly on Park, the in a single day chief, by turning the entrance 9 in 3-under 33 at Grayhawk’s Raptor Course. Zhang rolled in a birdie on the par-5 eleventh to achieve 10 below, however Lopez-Ortega tied her with a birdie on the par-3 fifth after beginning on the entrance 9.

When Lopez-Ortega fell off with consecutive bogeys, the stage was set for Zhang.

She hit a great drive on the par-5 18th, leaving 195 yards the opening. With water proper, Zhang nonetheless deliberate on going for the inexperienced along with her second shot, figuring at worst she’d hit it into the greenside bunker.

Then Walker stepped in, suggesting she lay up as a substitute. She did, two-putting for the title.

“She was like, ‘No, no, you have got a one-shot lead,'” Zhang mentioned. “Then I believed, ‘Oh wait, perhaps I ought to rethink all the pieces that simply occurred.'”

Park received higher because the season progressed, tying for second on the Silverado Showdown and tying for third on the Pac-12 Championships. She took a two-shot lead into the ultimate spherical at Grayhawk by tying the NCAA file with a 64 within the second spherical and following with a 71 on Sunday.

Park sandwiched two birdies round a bogey on the brief par-4 sixth gap within the remaining particular person spherical, then had a two-putt birdie on the par-5 seventh. She saved par when a fast-running chip on the par 3 hit the flagstick, however made bogey on the par-4 ninth.

Park pushed her lead again to 2 with a curling putt on the par-4 twelfth, however a three-putt down a steep slope on the par-4 fifteenth dropped her a shot behind when Zhang dropped in a birdie at No. 11.

Park hit a great chip shot from simply in need of the 18th gap, however pushed the birdie putt proper.

“It was a curler coaster, numerous feelings happening,” Park mentioned. “I did not wish to overthink it, however I used to be somewhat anxious.”

Zhang by no means was, incomes a rarified spot in girls’s golf.