Hanging with UFC fighters and seeing their gruesome injuries gave LPGA's Rose Zhang perspective on her own neck issues

Rose Zhang learned quickly that the rehabilitation process alongside athletes at the UFC Performance Institute in Nevada requires a strong stomach.

The two-time LPGA winner was at her new home base in Las Vegas working on coming back from the neck injury that has sidelined her since April 2. With Zhang laying on a PT table, her therapist showed her the kind of gruesome injuries that happen in UFC.

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Just talking about it on Tuesday made Zhang look a little queasy.

“[The therapist] just simply looked at it and said, ‘amputation.’ How bad is it to have your whatever be amputated?” Zhang said ahead of her return start in this week’s Mizuho Americas Open at Liberty National in New Jersey. “She was like, ‘Oh, do you want to see it?’ So casually, no change in demeanor. Wow, it's quite gruesome. It was really not great. This is the type of place where they've seen everything. Whatever I have is really nothing compared to what they're doing out there.”

The 21-year-old Zhang doesn’t watch UFC, and after that uncomfortable moment, she probably isn’t interested in ever watching. But she’ll always have that time spent with superstars from the Octagon.

“I got to do chin tucks with a bunch of [UFC] fighters,” Zhang said. “It’s very intimidating.”

Golf can be intimidating, too, although it wasn’t at first for Zhang. The California native and former Stanford star burst on to the professional scene by winning her first event in the 2023 Mizuho Americas Open. It was the first time an LPGA player won in her pro debut since Beverly Hanson in 1951.

There are many fond memories here for Zhang, and she’ll try to recapture those good vibes and the golf game that made many believe she was the next superstar in golf. Her path to holding another trophy was slowed when she conceded a match in the T-Mobile Match Play Championship in Las Vegas with the neck injury that forced her to take another break.

“I will say that I'm pain-free right now, which I'm very thankful for,” Zhang said. “I never realized, and obviously it goes unsaid, but the neck is very important for anything that you do. I just remember being in the car and any sort of movement obviously caused a lot of pain.

“To be able to do very simple tasks and sleep really well, I think it's definitely a blessing. So I'm taking all the positives out of it. Now going back into the golf game, the fact that I see the ball fly, the fact that I can rotate and not feel too much pain, that's honestly all that I can ask for.

“I think this week will be a great experience for myself just to get back into the flow of things. I've been working with my swing coach as well the last two days. You know, I have a lot of things that I'm willing to improve on and work on.”

Zhang hasn’t lifted an LPGA trophy since the Cognizant Founders Cup one year ago. After playing in the Tournament of Champions this past January, she took two months off to go back to school at Stanford for a quarter. Not long after she returned, she sustained the neck injury, so this is just her fourth event of the season. Her best finish is T-10 in the season opener and Zhang has fallen to 26th in the Rolex World Rankings. She has catching up to do in the season-long points race, currenty standing at 85th.

She already missed the first major in the Chevron Championship last month and the U.S. Women’s Open is just three weeks away at Erin Hills in Wisconsin.

“I'm willing to really learn a lot from the next couple days and put myself in the best position I can,” Zhang said. “I think that will obviously lead to the majors, gaining experience. I think everything is about just learning, especially in this time.

“I'm sort of rebuilding my own profile as a player, rebuilding my swing a little bit, the chipping, the putting. I think everything will come together by the time the majors come around.”

Zhang isn’t quite sure what to expect from her game because she hasn’t been able to practice much.

“It's a little bit limited. This is my third day playing golf. I will say I'm not exactly the most prepared,” Zhang said. “I will say that I've been watching a lot of golf, and I feel like that helps me a lot, just to see what other players are doing, even know the game a little bit more.

“I feel like watching television and always seeing how other players are playing, and with the commentators. I was able to bounce back and forth between the LPGA and the PGA [Tour] and learn from there. I will say that the body is feeling really good. It's a little bit tight just from not rotating as much.”

After seeing a gnarly UFC injury, there’s no complaining.