STANFORD – Rose Zhang of Irvine, California, tallied four birdies and no bogeys Tuesday at the Swinging Skirts AJGA Invitational at Stanford Golf Club. Zhang claims a two-stroke lead going into the second round at 4-under-par 66.
“I was just trying to play my own game and keep my tempo slow and steady,” said Zhang. “I was trying to leave myself in the smartest positions on the course and it’s just helped me gain a lot of opportunities and lots of good looks at birdies.”
Zhang, a Stanford University verbal commit, is looking for her sixth AJGA victory and first win of the 2019 season. The No. 1 player in the Rolex AJGA Rankings also recently helped Team USA earn a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.
Amari Avery of Riverside, California, and Fiona Xu of Mount Roskill, Auckland, New Zealand, sit two strokes back in second place after carding a 2-under-par 68. Avery’s best finish in 2019 came at the Polo Golf Junior Classic at Liberty National where she finished T9 and Xu has won in 2019 already at the AJGA Lake Las Vegas Junior hosted by Danielle Kang.
Three girls are tied for fourth after shooting a 1-under-par 69. Kelly Xu of Claremont, California, Rebecca DiNunzio of Norfolk, Virginia, and Yingzhi Zhu of (China) Austin, Texas, are three strokes back heading into the second round.
In the spirit of growing women’s golf, the Swinging Skirts AJGA Invitational provides top girls the opportunity to compete on the west coast each summer for an exemption into the LPGA’s Swinging Skirts event. Since 2014, the event has produced a stout list of past champions: Rolex Junior Player of the Year and current World Amateur Golf Rankings No. 1 Andrea Lee (2014); three-time Rolex Junior All-American and two-time LPGA Tour winner Nelly Korda (2015); two-time Rolex Junior All-American and 2019 Duke NCAA Championship clincher Miranda Wang (2016); four-time Rolex Junior All-American and current Symetra Tour player Yujeong Son (2017); and six-time AJGA champion and current No. 1 in the Rolex AJGA Rankings Rose Zhang (2018).
Second-round tee times will run from 7:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. on Wednesday.
About the Swinging Skirts Golf Foundation
The Swinging Skirts Golf Foundation is a non-profit organization based out of Taiwan whose members, both male and female, compete in a skirt or kilt on the golf course and help grow the game internationally. In addition to staging the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic and Swinging Skirts World Ladies Masters (Taiwan Ladies Professional Golf Association and the Korea Ladies Professional Golf Tour co-sanctioned event), the Swinging Skirts Golf Foundation has conducted the “Dream-chasing Cup” throughout northern, central and southern Taiwan to help lay the foundation for Taiwanese junior golfers to make it to the international stage.