Rose Zhang wrote an open letter: “It’s illegal”

Rose Zhang wrote an open letter: “I want to start with a story about something illegal. Maybe I shouldn’t. But it’s one of my favorite memories. In the neighborhood where I grew up in Southern California, there was a huge construction site.

All of these houses were built on a huge empty lot, and being nine years old, I would say it was the biggest thing I had ever seen. I was just starting to play golf, and had just “graduated” from hitting bottle caps in the yard to hitting real balls.

So my dad took me to this huge construction site with a mat, some clubs and some balls. I can still picture it: the desert stretching to the horizon. Houses on either side and hundreds of feet of earth in between.

A good first driving range. I hit balls at sunset and my dad watched. We got in the car, drove through the brush and collected all the balls we could find. Then I started over. Now I’m in Paris preparing to represent the United States at the Olympics.

And that place in the desert seems far away. But every time I take a club out of my bag, I feel what I felt. Because before the tournaments and the travels and the interviews and all that stuff – I was just Rose. A strange little girl who rode her bike around the neighborhood picking up rocks and petting every dog ​​she saw.

In many ways I am still her, only this week’s driving range at Le Golf National is so much nicer than the one over there…

Rose Zhang, statements

I used to spend a lot of days in the neighborhood with my brother, I remember him being a huge Steph Curry fan.

We were in Southern California, but we loved watching him and the Warriors. He was, and still is, such an incredible player. As I got older, the more I watched him, the more I realized what a great person he was too.

You could tell from his interviews and his online presence that he was a good family man, a caring teammate. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially as someone who’s going to the same Olympics as Steph.

How important it is to be a good person in society. I want to be more than just the golfer that some people may know me as. I remember as a little girl, probably not long after I started practicing in the desert, I asked my coach, “When am I going to win a trophy?” That feeling that the outcome is everything… so much to think about, regardless of age.

Back then I was really just the golfer. I had my other stuff and my bike and my family and everything. But junior golf took up a lot of my time. My dad and I would travel all over California and the rest of the country playing tournaments and trying to improve my world ranking.

I came home after a couple of weeks and went to school and hung out with my friends, and they were all making jokes that only they understood. By the time I was 15, 16, I felt isolated. I think I lost that normalcy. Junior golf can be more tiring than professional golf in some ways.

My dad and I worked really hard to get into a good university and have a professional career. My mom didn’t know much about sports, but she was always the first person I would go to for a hug or a pep talk. We were a good team.

My parents didn’t really care about my grades or stress about my work ethic. They just wanted me to do my job and have fun afterwards. That was the most important thing to them. They wanted me to enjoy my childhood as much as possible.

And our bond was so strong that when it came time to go to college, I think I realized I needed to be more independent. Stanford was the perfect place to do that. I remember going to campus and being very intimidated.

It looked huge. I met Anne Walker, our golf coach, there and she made me feel like I was in the right place. And it was far enough away from home that I felt like I could do my own thing, that I could be myself as an individual.

Walker did a fantastic job working with our group to bring us all together. Rachel Heck, my teammate and to this day one of my best friends, we were ranked #1 and #2 in the world amateur golf rankings. And I think some people would assume there was jealousy or rivalry, but there wasn’t.

We pushed each other, yes. And our whole team felt so comfortable with each other. A lot of who I am today, as a person and as a professional golfer, is because of my time at Stanford. I’m so glad to call Michelle Wie West a friend.

She’s a Stanford graduate and she’s been a mentor to me. When I was talking to Coach Walker about going pro, I had a lot of doubts. I wanted to get my degree. I wanted to keep playing with the team, keep growing as a person.

And eventually I got in touch with Michelle and heard about her experience. We were talking on the phone one day and she was telling me how she went pro and stayed in college to get her degree. She said, “Why not do both?” And I thought, “…

Why not both? If you can do it, I can do it!” And she said, “Exactly!!!” And that was it. Not long after that I turned pro and my first tournament was the Mizuho Americas Open. Michelle is the face of the tournament, so that was a very special week.

To be able to play my first pro tournament in front of her, my friends, and my family was incredible. And then to win it!!!!! It was unbelievable. It still seems surreal to think about it. But you know what’s funny, I remember having to go straight back to Stanford for my finals.

The tournament was in New Jersey, so after winning it was straight to the New York Stock Exchange to ring the bell, then Good Morning America, interviews, then a statistics exam in California. The last two years seem a bit of a blur sometimes.

But to be here at the Olympics in Paris, wearing the uniform of the United States, representing the country. It’s a truly unique moment. I’m grateful for everyone who’s helped me along the way. I’m excited to compete, to show the world who I am.

I will always be that little girl beating in the desert, but who I am now is so much more. And I can’t wait for you all to meet her.”