MESA, Ariz. — The Symetra Tour opens its 2021 season this week and a field of 132 golfers will compete in the Carlisle Arizona Women’s Golf Classic. It’s a field that will include three amateurs, including the world’s No. 1-ranked amateur Rose Zhang. She’ll be looking to continue her impressive play.
She won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in August and then a few weeks later, finished 11th at the ANA Inspiration, one of the LPGA’s major championships. It wasn’t long after that she found herself atop the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking. She capped off 2020 being named the AJGA’s Rolex Junior Player of the Year.
Much of this success came while she was still healing from a wrist injury.
“Over quarantine last year, I was practicing in the garage and I over-practiced on the mats,” she said on Tuesday at Longbow Golf Club in Mesa. “It didn’t really do well with my left wrist. It seemed like I got tendinitis and then it became wrist impingement.”
After she closed out 2020, Zhang said she finally got a chance to rest.
“After the U.S. Women’s Open (in December) I rested for around a month and a half,” she said, adding that she barely touched her golf clubs. “I putted a little bit but not a lot.”
Now she’s in the field in Arizona, just a couple weeks after getting invited by Longbow General Manager Bob McNichols.
“I was actually at a friend’s house when I got the invite,” she said, admitting when the phone rang, she didn’t know who was calling. “It was a number that I didn’t really know. But I got a call from Bob and he was like ‘I’ll extend an invitation to you’ and I was like, ‘That’s great. I would definitely take that opportunity. I would be glad to’ and now I’m here.”
Making the decision last year between the ANA and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur was not so easy.
“It’s really tough because both of them being in the same week and both of them being such great events for women’s golf. It was quite a tough decision, do I want to play the major or whether I want to play the Amateur and going to Augusta National. But I think both events are great.
“Then it turns out Augusta was canceled so it worked in my favor, choosing ANA,” she noted.
Because of the COVID pandemic, the ANA was delayed to September but the 2020 ANWA was canceled. The ANWA is back this year and Zhang can’t wait to return after playing in the inaugural event.
“I was able to play in 2019 and the event was just so prestigious, the first one, being such a historical event, being a part of it was simply amazing, especially with the golf course and the Masters. There’s so much history that you can just see out there any time you’re on the course.”
As for this week, she’s not getting ahead of herself.
“I see so many amazing players,” she said. “It’s a very nice and competitive atmosphere. I have a couple friends out here that I haven’t seen since junior golf, so it’s definitely very fun and I’m excited to play with such amazing people.
“I don’t really have a goal of what place I finish. I think, for me, it’s just being able to manage myself and play the best I can, stick to my course management and try to play my best.”