The three players who will represent the USA in the 2022 Women’s World Amateur Team Championship, to be played Aug. 24-27 at Le Golf National in Paris, France, have been finalized.
The players, who all represented the USA in both the 2021 and 2022 Curtis Cup Matches, are
Rachel Heck, 20, of Memphis, Tenn.,
Rachel Kuehn, 21, of Asheville, N.C., and
Rose Zhang, 19, of Irvine, Calif.
The World Amateur Team Championships are conducted by the International Golf Federation (IGF). The IGF also conducts golf competitions in the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games.
Pam Murray, past chair of the USGA Women’s Committee, will serve as captain of the USA Women’s World Amateur Team.
Rachel Heck and Rose Zhang (USGA) Zhang is a two-time USGA champion and currently No. 1 in the Women’s WAGR, having recently won the McCormack Medal as the world’s leading amateur in August for the third consecutive year. After winning the 2020 U.S. Women’s Amateur in Maryland, Zhang earned her second USGA title last summer, defeating Bailey Davis, 6 and 4, in the final match of the 2021 U.S. Girls’ Junior, becoming just the eighth player to win both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur. She began her career at Stanford University by winning her first three collegiate events, before going on to capture the NCAA Division I individual championship.
Heck is a rising junior at Stanford University who won the 2021 Annika Award as the top collegiate golfer. She became the third player in women’s college history to sweep conference (Pacific 12), regional (Stanford Regional) and national titles (NCAAs) her freshman year, becoming the first Stanford woman to win an individual NCAA title, and the ninth freshman to achieve the feat. Heck’s 69.72 scoring average over 25 rounds is the lowest in NCAA women’s golf history. She was a semifinalist in the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur, and a member of the victorious 2021 and 2022 USA Curtis Cup Teams. She is currently No. 3 in the Women’s WAGR.
Rachel Kuehn Kuehn, a rising senior at Wake Forest University, earned medalist honors in the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur at Westchester Country Club, posting 6-under-par 138 on the famed West Course. She had a strong junior collegiate season, earning two individual victories including winning the Tar Heel Invitational by a stroke after a second-round 63, the lowest 18-hole score in Wake Forest women's golf history. She won the 2020 North & South Women’s Amateur and the 2020 Ladies National Golf Association Amateur. Her grandfather, Jack Corrie, represented Venezuela in the World Amateur Team Championship.
The alternates, in order, are
Amari Avery, 18, of Riverside, Calif., and
Bailey Shoemaker, 17, of Dade City, Fla.
Prior to the 2018 championships, the USGA announced a series of revisions to the association’s selection process for international teams that provide for some automatic selections, as well as created more transparency into how the remaining selections are made. The selection process now automatically names the best-ranked USA player in the WAGR as of pre-determined dates (Zhang) as well as the U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, should she be American. The selections of Heck and Kuehn were decided by the USGA’s International Team Selection Committee.
The World Amateur Team Championship was founded in 1958, and the Women’s World Amateur Team Championship began in 1964. The IGF was founded in 1958 to encourage the international development of golf through friendship and sportsmanship. Today, the IGF consists of 151 national governing bodies of golf representing 146 countries and is the international federation for golf for the International Olympic Committee.
The championship was last played in 2018 in Ireland, with the team from the United States capturing the Espirito Santo Trophy for a record 14th time.
by Julia Pine, USGA
ABOUT THE Women's World Amateur Team
In 1958 the United States Golf Association asked
The R&A to join them in sponsoring a world-wide
amateur golf team event to be played biennially
in non-Walker Cup years. Between 35 and 40
nations were represented at the first meeting
and President Dwight D. Eisenhower presented
the trophy which bears his name. The committee
of the event was to be known as the World
Amateur Golf Council and is now the
International Golf Federation. Teams of four
players from each country competed over 72
holes with the leading three scores from each
round to count. The first competition was held
between 29 nations at St Andrews, with Australia
beating the United States in a play-off. In 2002
the format changed to teams of three with the
two leading scores to count.
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