Stanford sensation Rose Zhang makes run at LPGA major
Stanford sensation Rose Zhang made a run at more golf history Sunday, charging over the front nine at Baltusrol to join the leaders in the Women’s PGA Championship tournament.
Three weeks after becoming the first LPGA player since 1951 to win their pro debut, Zhang was one stroke off the lead heading to the 16th tee. A bogey at 16 dropped her two strokes back and she finished three behind the winner, Ruoning Yin, who carded a final-round 67 for a four-day total of 276.
Yuka Saso finished second at 277, followed by a group of five players at 278. Zhang, who shot 67 Sunday, was tied for 8th at 279.
Of her Top-10 finish, Zhang said: “Safe to say, I’ll take it… I wish a couple more putts would have dropped, but it’s all good.”
Zhang, 20, had started the day 6 strokes back, but birdied the first two holes Sunday and also birdied Nos. 7 and 8. The birdie at 11 was her fifth of the round.
“Today was the best ball-striking I’ve felt in the last couple of days,” said Zhang, a sophomore at Stanford who turned pro last month after winning the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.
Next up for Zhang is the U.S. Open, July 6-9, at Pebble Beach.
Yin, 20, became the second woman from China to win a major when she made a birdie putt from about 10 feet on the final hole.
After Saso made birdie ahead of her on the par-5 18th to move into a tie for the lead, Yin found the rough with her tee shot, then hit her third shot into an ideal spot and curled in the right-to-left breaking putt, pumping her fist after it dropped.
Yin closed with a 4-under 67 and joined Shanshan Feng, who won this event — then known as the LPGA Championship — in 2012 as Chinese winners of women’s majors. Feng is currently the Chinese national team coach.
Saso, the U.S. Women’s Open champion in 2021, shot 66. The championship had a mid-round delay of nearly two hours because of severe weather.
Xiyu Lin, who either led or shared the lead during most of her back nine, found the water with her drive on the 18th and made bogey to shoot 67 and finish two shots back alongside Carlota Ciganda (64), Anna Nordqvist (65), Megan Khang (67) and Stephanie Meadow (70).
Leona Maguire, who won last week and led after the second and third rounds, shot 74, ending a run of eight straight rounds in the 60s. She finished four shots back.