Every day for the rest of 2022, SI Golf will reveal one of its top newsmakers of the year, from No. 20 to No. 1.
Who She Is: 2022 NCAA Division I women’s golf champion
SI Golf Rank: 16 (Gabby Herzig), 12 (Alex Miceli)
Why She’s Here: If you paid any attention to amateur golf this year, it’s painstakingly obvious why Rose Zhang—the best female amateur in the world for the past 117 weeks—made this list. The Stanford freshman ended 2021 with a bang, winning her first three fall starts as a Stanford freshman, but she took 2022 by storm.
At the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, Zhang made the cut and finished tied for 12th, all with a fractured toe. The fact that her ANWA result was one of the more underwhelming performances of her year deserves its own recognition.
Rose Zhang finished 12th in April at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur with a fractured toe.
Michael Madrid/USA TODAY Sports
Other Top Newsmakers: No. 20 Henrik Stenson
The NCAA Championship highlighted the 19-year-old’s 2022, as Zhang won the Division I individual title in wire-to-wire fashion. She then went on to help the Cardinal clinch their second team title with a 3-2 win over Oregon. By the end of the season, the former U.S. Amateur champion had also broken the NCAA’s single-season scoring average with a staggering 69.68. But wait, there’s more: Zhang started the summer at world-renowned Merion Golf Club as a member of Team USA in the 42nd Curtis Cup, helping spur the American squad on to a crushing defeat of Great Britain & Ireland, 15.5 to 4.5.
All the while, the phenom was taking advantage of her superstar status. She became not just the first college golfer, but the first ever student athlete to sign an NIL (name, image and likeness) deal with Adidas. It wasn’t just sponsorship deals that gave Zhang a taste of life on tour: She made three major starts in 2022, making the cut in all of them and achieving low amateur honors at the AIG Women’s Open.
Zhang’s trophy shelf continues to overflow, as she followed up her stellar summer with three individual wins during Stanford’s fall season by margins of five, seven and three shots. A new women’s course record at Pebble Beach aided in one of those—no big deal. Zhang’s game carried her throughout 2022, but it has always been her demeanor that has propelled the teenager to success. Zhang is as humble as they get, but on the inside she’s got killer competitive instincts. Her 2022 proved how unstoppable that concoction can be, and that it’s here to stay.
2023 Outlook: In June, Zhang announced her plan to stay at least another year on the Stanford golf team. She likes to think ahead, but not too far ahead—she keeps a 1-2 year plan. It’s safe to assume that professional golf will be in Zhang’s near future, but we can’t guarantee it will come in 2023. We can expect, however, that the world No. 1 will make another run at the NCAA individual title in Scottsdale, Ariz., in late May.
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