Rose Zhang has struggled on the greens at Pebble Beach, however she might’ve found the repair throughout her third spherical.
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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — It’s late in the third spherical of the U.S. Women’s Open, and Rose Zhang stands on Pebble Beach’s 18th inexperienced. She’s even par for the day, and if she will birdie the par-5 finisher, she’ll get again to even par for the championship. She’s eight pictures behind the lead, however Sundays at majors are difficult — something can occur.
Zhang sizes up her birdie look from 13 toes and goes by her routine: Read the putt from back and front. Pick a spot she needs the ball to roll over. Confer with her caddie. She steps over the ball and strokes the putt, watching as her Stanford-stamped Titleist rolls over the bumpy Poa annua floor.
It rolls out and stops 5 inches wanting the gap, rudely staying above floor. Zhang faucets in for par and heads for the scoring tent. An even-par 72 leaves her at one over for the championship.
“I just felt like I made a couple mistakes going in,” she says. “And missed a couple putts.”
The errors are forgivable. Zhang’s hit the ball fantastically all week, even in tough circumstances. The missed putts are a bit more durable to swallow. Although the rookie has solely been on the LPGA Tour a month, missed putts have gotten a little bit of a pattern.
At the Mizuho Americas Open, a chilly putter on Sunday almost price her the crown. And at the KPMG Women’s PGA, missed putts on the again 9 had been the distinction between a victory and a near-miss.
Saturday was one other a kind of days. Zhang took 30 putts to get round the seaside hyperlinks, and she or he misplaced half a stroke to the discipline on the greens. Of the 74 gamers who made the reduce, Zhang ranked 52nd in strokes gained: placing throughout Round 3.
“I felt like I hit everything pretty solid,” she stated. “I just wish I could have made more putts.”
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The excellent news is Zhang has an concept of why her placing deserted her — and the way she will repair it.
“My clubface was a little bit open at address, so even if I do have a good stroke, I tend[ed] to miss right today,” she stated. “I think going into tomorrow just understanding my alignment and committing to that stroke is what I’m planning on doing.”
Self-diagnosis is a key high quality of any elite participant, and it seems Zhang suits that mildew.
“I saw myself missing a couple more putts to the right rather than the left and they felt like good strokes,” she stated. “So it’s just something that you go back to in terms of fundamentals.”
If she will get again to these fundamentals to appropriate the open face, count on the putts to fall with extra frequency in the last spherical.
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