Rose Zhang has been at the top of the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) for a long time now.
It is a testament to the sustained excellence displayed by the Stanford freshman from Irvine, Calif. But it also challenges the incredibly deep and talented group of women’s college golfers to go after her. Everybody wants to beat No. 1, right?
The NCAA Championship opened Friday at Grayhawk Golf Club’s Raptor Course in Scottsdale, Ariz. and by the end of the day, there was Zhang at the top of the leaderboard in the individual standings with a 4-under-par 68, leading the Cardinal to the top of the team chase with a 1-over 289 total.
There’s a long way to go at Grayhawk, but there was the No. 1 amateur player in the world and the team that’s been ranked No. 1 by Golfstat since the very beginning of the wraparound 2021-2022 season at the top of the individual and team leaderboards after Day 1.
The team field will be cut to the top 15 teams following Sunday’s third round and the top eight finishers after Monday’s final round will advance to match play, which gets under way Tuesday.
Zhang started off the 10th tee and got it to 2-under with birdies at the 11th and 18th holes. She stumbled briefly with bogeys at the first and third holes to fall back to even-par.
But Zhang always seems to have an answer and she got it right back to 2-under with an eagle at the par-5 fourth hole and then made back-to-back birdies on the seventh and eighth holes for a 4-under round over the 6,340-yard, par-72 Raptor Course layout.
That helped Stanford grab a three-shot lead over Southeastern Conference power Texas A&M, ranked 19th, as the Aggies, behind Zoe Slaughter, a sophomore from Houston who stood in second place in the individual standings, a shot behind Zhang with a 3-under 69, posted a 4-over 292.
Stanford’s Pac-12 rival UCLA, ranked 15th, was three more shots behind Texas A&M in third place with a 7-over 295 total.
Two more SEC entries, No. 17 Auburn and conference champion LSU, ranked 14th, shared fourth place with Atlantic Coast Conference entry Florida State, ranked 10th, each landing on 8-over 296, a shot behind UCLA.
Florida State is coming off a dominating team victory as the host team in the Tallahassee Regional.
The Pac-12 champion, No. 2 Oregon, continued the consistently strong play it has displayed all spring as the Ducks were alone in seventh place with a 9-over 297 total. Oregon is coming off a team victory in the Albuquerque Regional.
Backing up Zhang for Stanford was Sadie Englemann, a sophomore from Austin, Texas who was part of a trio of players tied for third place in the individual standings with a solid 1-under 71.
Brooke Seay, a junior from San Diego and No. 43 in the Women’s WAGR, and Aline Krauter, a senior from Germany and No. 27 in the Women’s WAGR, each carded a 3-over 75 to end up among the group tied for 45th place.
Rounding out the Stanford lineup was Rachel Heck, a sophomore from Memphis, Tenn. and No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR who landed in the group tied for 56th place with a 4-over 76.
Heck was the NCAA individual champion as a freshman a year ago at Grayhawk and helped Stanford, before Zhang even arrived, to the top seed in the match-play bracket before the Cardinal fell in the quarterfinals. Heck is not playing at the same level as she was this time last year, but she has been in plenty of big moments in her young career.
Zhang and Heck will be members of the United States team when it takes on Great Britain & Ireland in the 42nd Curtis Cup Match at Merion Golf Club’s iconic East Course in just 20 days. Seay is an alternate for the U.S. Zhang and Heck were members of the victorious U.S. team in the Curtis Cup Match, postponed from 2020 by the coronavirus pandemic, last summer at Conwy Golf Club in Caernarvonshire, Wales.
Joining Stanford’s Englemann in the trio tied for third place, two shots behind Texas A&M’s Slaughter, at 1-under 71, were UCLA’s Ty Akabane, a redshirt sophomore from Danville, Calif., and TCU’s Sabrina Iqbal, a senior from San Jose, Calif.
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