Getty Images
Pebble Beach, Calif. — The third round of the US Women’s Open is overdue, and Rose Zhang is standing on Pebble Beach 18th. She’s even on the day, and if she can fly at the end, she’ll be back in the tournament. It’s eight times behind the top spot, but Sundays in the majors are tough—anything can happen.
Zhang measures her birdie appearance from 13 feet and follows her routine: Read the knockout front and back. Choose a place where you want the ball to roll. Consult with her caddy. She steps over the ball and hits her putt, watching as the Stanford Seal Titleist rolls over the bumpy surface of Poa annua.
It rolls over and stops about five inches from the hole, remaining brazenly above the ground. Zhang presses up and heads toward the registration tent. A tie-breaking 72 leaves her at one more for the championship.
“I felt like I made two mistakes going in,” she says. “And he missed a couple of strikes.”
Errors are forgiven. Zhang hit the ball beautifully all week, even in difficult conditions. Missed strikes are a little harder to swallow. Although the newbie has only been on the LPGA Tour a month, missed strokes have become somewhat of a trend.
At the Mizuho US Open, a cold racket on Sunday nearly cost her the crown. And in the KPMG Women’s Championship, missed strikes in the ninth were the difference between victory and a near miss.
Saturday was another of those days. Zhang took 30 putts to get around the coastal links, missing by half a stroke in the field on the greens. Of the 74 players who made the cut, Zhang ranked 52nd in hits earned: shooting during the third round.
“I felt like I hit everything with a lot of force,” she said. “I wish I could get more hits.”
The good news is that Chang has an idea of why she dumped her — and how she can fix it.
“My club face was a little bit open in the title, so even if I get a good stroke, I tip[ed] Let’s miss it today.” “I think going into tomorrow just to understand my agreement and stick to that stroke is what I plan to do.”
Self-diagnosis is a key quality for any elite player, and Zhang seems to fit that mold.
“I saw myself missing another pair of strokes to the right instead of the left and felt good,” she said. “So it’s just something you go back to in terms of the basics.”
If you can go back to those basics to correct the open face, expect strikes to fall at a greater frequency in the final round.