Rose Zhang’s U.S. Women’s Open has been a bit of a roller coaster through two days, with some below-average golf sandwiched between two stretches of great play.
Through seven holes in the first round, Zhang was 2 under par and looked poised to have her name on the first page of the leaderboard throughout the week. That’s when disaster struck with a double bogey at the par-4 eighth that sent her round in the wrong direction.
Full-field scores from the U.S. Women’s Open
“It just came really suddenly,” Zhang said Friday. “I felt like I was doing really well. I was 2 under, and just making that double, it definitely changed the momentum of my round.”
Including that dreadful hole, which featured a lost ball after an errant approach from the fairway, Zhang failed to make a birdie over a span of 18 holes. She played that stretch in 6 over par, leaving her at 4 over for the championship with 11 holes to play in her second round. Making the cut was far from a guarantee.
That’s when things flipped back in Zhang’s favor.
She started on the back nine at Pebble Beach Friday morning and finally got a birdie putt to drop at the par-3 17th, where she hit her tee shot to 10 feet.
Zhang took care of business at both of the par 5s on the front to come home in 2-under 34 and secure her spot on the weekend at 1 over par.
“I was able to hole a really, really good putt on 17 and that kind of shifted my momentum into the back nine where I turned over to the front,” Zhang said. “Felt very solid with my game in general.”
Zhang looked solid down the stretch on Friday, and she’ll need more of that type of play this weekend if she hopes to track down those at the top of the leaderboard. She’s eight shots behind leader Bailey Tardy and knows she’ll need to take a few more chances over the next two days if she’ll be leaving the Monterey Peninsula with her first major championship.
“I’ve been in this position before where you have to chase and it’s nothing new to me,” Zhang said. “I’ll just be trying to do the same thing: Get my game plan and try to hit as many fairways and greens as possible because that will allow you to gain more birdie opportunities. That’s all I can do. … In order to put myself in a position where I can play well the next two days and try to climb up that leaderboard, I have to change my game plan and be a little bit more aggressive.”
