CHANDLER, ARIZONA | After a two-month break from the LPGA Tour, Rose Zhang once again exchanged her student hat for her professional athlete lid. Following a winter quarter taking classes at Stanford University, she found it difficult to shake off the rust. In the first round of the Ford Championship at Whirlwind Golf Club, she shot 73 (+1), leaving her 10 shots behind the leader, Charley Hull.
“I think I need a lot of technique work,” Zhang said. “[There are] a lot of things that I need to work on in terms of my game from the long game to the short, so it’s a lot more focused on that rather than just trying to go for a score, go for wins, all that stuff.”
For the second consecutive year, the two-time LPGA winner and former world-beating amateur took a winter sabbatical from professional golf to focus entirely on her schoolwork at Stanford, where she is pursuing a degree in communications. Zhang turned pro in 2023 after winning two NCAA individual titles at Stanford but committed to graduating, following a trail blazed by her friend and mentor Michelle Wie West, who earned a Stanford degree in 2012 while playing professionally.
On Thursday, Zhang made her first LPGA start since the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in January. During her time on campus in Palo Alto, California, she took 22 units worth of classes. Zhang says sitting through hours of lectures and taking pop quizzes made her feel like a normal student. This is in stark contrast to the fall quarter, when she tried to balance taking classes while playing.
“Last quarter I felt how difficult it was going through the season and maintaining just my energy and my stability in the things that I was doing,” Zhang said. “So I decided to use this winter quarter to just be a student.”
Zhang says one course in particular she took last quarter may be helpful for her career: Sleep and Dreams. In this class, Zhang learned about sleep optimization and the importance of sleep to function.
“The time change affected me a lot off the golf course, and I had a lot of racing mind during that time. So creating a routine that helps you wind down a little bit and then redoing that until you actually fall asleep has been like a little bit of an eye opener.” – Rose Zhang
“They had this class mantra called ‘drowsiness is red alert,’” Zhang said. “That pertains to driving in particular, but it applies to every aspect of your life.”
Zhang says she especially had difficulty when playing outside the United States. She was averaging six or fewer hours of sleep a night when she says athletes are supposed to get eight.
“The time change affected me a lot off the golf course, and I had a lot of racing mind during that time,” Zhang said. “So creating a routine that helps you wind down a little bit and then redoing that until you actually fall asleep has been like a little bit of an eye opener.”
Zhang also had a tough time sleeping after a tournament wrapped up.
“On Sunday nights I would usually have two, three, four hours of sleep,” Zhang said. “It doesn’t help if you have consecutive tournaments where you have to play or you have to travel that Sunday or the following Monday and then go to the next site and have to do this all over again.”
After taking the Sleep and Dreams class, her new pre-sleep routine is simple.
“It’s a lot of breathing and a lot less screen time,” Zhang said. “That kind of helps your heart rate slow down a little bit and helps with too much information getting into your head.”
Something else Zhang learned from the class: she doesn’t often dream at night.
“We had a sleep journal where we had to write what sort of dreams we encountered or how many dreams we had,” Zhang said. “I didn’t have a single dream for the first six weeks of the quarter.”
While Zhang might not dream much at night, she is a dreamer. She says it was her dream growing up to play professional golf, and since joining the LPGA she has won twice and been part of a winning Solheim Cup squad. She is currently ranked 17th in the world
Now, as Zhang lives her dream, she wants to help others live theirs. In February, she hosted an American Junior Golf Association event called the Fortinet Stanford Invitational.
“I think little girls do have big dreams, and they can actually approach it that way,” Zhang said. “I almost didn’t dare to think that I was going to be a professional golfer, but I did have the dream and I thought it was big.”
Zhang is also one of the five LPGA*USGA Girls Golf ambassadors, along with Angel Yin, Gaby Lopez, Madelene Sagström and Sarah Schmelzel. The program seeks to get young girls interested in golf. While the 21-year-old Zhang thinks it’s sometimes weird to think of herself as a role model for the next generation, she also thinks it’s a great opportunity.
“For me, giving back to those who also want to either be here on the tour or also go to college, it’s a fun experience for everyone, not just myself,” Zhang said.
Needing 40 more units to graduate from Stanford, Zhang says she will focus on golf for the next several months before returning to class for the fall and winter quarters. Her plan is to graduate next year.