‘Lot of the Stress’: Rose Zhang Opens Up About Struggles With Bad Flu & Academics While Balancing Her LPGA Career

Rose Zhang has no time to think of her swing. Or drive, for that matter. The Stanford product would be cramming Political Science notes when her peers would be driving in the range. The 20-year-old still has exams to take care of. Zhang has only played one LPGA tournament this season, the Hilton Grand Tournament of Champions, where she tied for the seventh spot.

How is life? asked a reporter at the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship media interaction. Zhang gave off a wry laugh before unpacking her jam-packed schedule for the week.

Rose Zhang has mastered the art of multitasking

First things first, the one-time LPGA Tour winner has exams today, right after the press conference at around 2. “It’s going to be for media psych. It was a very interesting class. I had a lot of fun with it. I still have to finish that exam,” Zhang said. The LPGA Pro has to travel back to Irvine, her home—a 45-mile drive from Palos Verdes—to sit for the exams.

But that’s just one of them. The Fir Seri Park Championship begins on Thursday. But on Wednesday evening, Zhang would be busy cramming notes for a 15-page political science paper that’s due at night. “That class is a little bit more niche, so it requires more research and reading, and integration of real-life context versus the context that we learned in class. So it’s a little bit more difficult there.”

But she isn’t super worried about that; only “three to four” pages are left. And the exam before that was also open notes. But she is functioning at a “below 50%” energy level because, if the exams were not enough, she has also caught the flu to make matters worse.

Flu has accompanied the exam fever 

Zhang revealed that she has a fever that has been circulating on the Stanford campus. “I‘ve been trying to recover from a really bad flu the last two days, been a little bedridden. But we’re out here thriving.” Perhaps that was a corollary of the exam fever. But Zhang takes solace in knowing she isn’t alone, reeling under the pressure. “I think a lot of the stress has come on to me, especially this week. It’s finals week; everyone is dying back at Stanford as well. All my friends are just going through it,” Zhang said at the press conference.

Read More: Is Rose Zhang Dropping Out From Stanford College? Her Latest Lifestyle Change Explored

But what a humble Rose Zhang didn’t was that not everyone at Stanford won in their first career start. Mizuho America’s Open, the victory that made Zhang a part of LPGA history, was hosted by Michelle Wie West. The one she would play next, the Fir Seri Park Championship, previously named Dio Implant LA Open, honors the legacy of Seri Park. Zhang has inspiration aplenty in the female circuit. 

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