You’d be hard pressed to find anybody not interested in buying Rose Zhang stock. The 21-year-old has made the transition from amateur phenom to two-time LPGA winner seem much simpler than it really is. Which makes what happened to her at the AIG Women’s British Open on Friday a bit of a surprise.
Playing the par-4 second hole at the Old Course, Zhang saw her approach shot land in a greenside bunker, stopping fairly close to a steep sod face. It’s a shot that would make any amateur nervous, and as it turns out wasn’t even easy for the ninth ranked female golfer in the world.
Golf is hard.
Links golf pot bunkers are even harder. pic.twitter.com/32aQk55rAk
— AIG Women’s Open (@AIGWomensOpen) August 23, 2024
After the second time she left her ball in the bunker, you could see Zhang look around as if to find a rules official to double check on what to do next since the ball appeared to hit her after she made her swing. Thankfully, the Rules of Golf have been eased in recent years, to allow that to happen without any additional penalty. But still, this was proving to be a costly mistake.
Zhang finally got out of the sand with her fifth shot, playing the shot out sideways. A sixth swing to get her ball on the green and two putts resulted in a quadruple-bogey 8. Having started the second round at even par, and with the cut projected to be around the four-over mark, Zhang had some work remaining now to be sure to be playing on the weekend at St. Andrews.
Impressively she made a birdie on the third hole but then double bogeyed the par-5 fifth to fall to five over. It was all pars after that until the 16th hole, when a birdie got her back to four over and just inside the cutline, keeping her from suprisingly missing in a third major in 2024.