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‘Dean of American Historians’: Ken Burns on William E. Leuchtenburg

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‘Dean of American Historians’: Ken Burns on William E. Leuchtenburg

Ken Burns was in his studio working on the final edits of a forthcoming documentary film series on the American Revolution when he learned on Tuesday that the historian William E. Leuchtenburg had died at 102.

“I had to get up and go be by myself for a while,” Mr. Burns said in an interview. “Everything just crashed to a halt.”

In his view, Mr. Leuchtenburg was “one of the great historians, if not the dean of American historians in the United States, for his work on the presidency.”

For more than 40 years, Mr. Leuchtenburg was a close adviser and friend to Mr. Burns, appearing in three of his documentaries — “Prohibition” (2011), “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” (2014) and “Benjamin Franklin” (2022) — and consulting on many more.

The Times spoke to Mr. Burns on Wednesday about Mr. Leuchtenburg’s career. His observations, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, are below.

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He would send me notes all the time. My files are filled with these notes with little schoolboy handwriting. It reminded me of the way I wrote cursive when I was in the eighth grade. I just want to imagine that he had a filing system that looked like the cavernous place at the end of “Citizen Kane” or “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” because he could not have had so many references at his hand. He would just bring them up. It might be baseball, which he and I both passionately loved. It might be jazz. It might be World War II. Obviously the presidency. Vietnam. Really all of the kinds of things that we’ve done. He had an interest in what we were doing and how we were doing it that made him an extraordinarily helpful contributor.

He made particularly important contributions to our history of baseball, to the Second World War, to our Prohibition film — in which we learned personally from him the very, very complicated internal dynamics, not just about what took place in Prohibition, but his own personal family life in which both his parents were alcoholics. And so the repeal for him was not a good thing. He also understood, hilariously and intimately, the sexual revolution that was going on in the 1920s among women, and just flat-out said that people discovered the clitoris. And that was, like, whoa!

He was a storyteller. All you need to do is go into the fifth episode of the Roosevelt series and look at his concise way of explaining what it was. He first talks about filling up a stadium with people and then emptying it and then filling it up again. And if you did this over and over again, you would get the number of people who had gone out of work. It was just such a vivid description.

I’m going to cry talking about it, but it’s just this gigantic and unfillable hole. He taught us well, though. He’s imparted not just facts, but attitudes and relationships and methodologies that we’ll save. We’ll be poorer for not having Bill to come and look at a rough cut of something that he shouldn’t know anything about but then inevitably knows a ton. We’ll muddle through.

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Are NFL players as college coaches here to stay? Why DeSean Jackson, Michael Vick can work

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Are NFL players as college coaches here to stay? Why DeSean Jackson, Michael Vick can work

Rodell Rahmaan has seen enough man-on-the-street interviews on social media to know he wants to do one. He’d love for a stranger with a camera to ask him the most famous person on his phone.

“I can’t wait,” Rahmaan said, “to tell them it’s Eddie George.”

The 1995 Heisman Trophy winner is in Rahmaan’s contacts list because of George’s second football life as the head coach at Tennessee State. Players at Norfolk State and Delaware State can relate after their programs hired Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson, respectively, this winter.

The trio entered those jobs with a combined 11 Pro Bowl appearances … and one season of coaching: Jackson’s eight-month stint as a high school assistant.

George, Vick and Jackson aren’t the only high-profile NFL alumni strolling college sidelines. Hall of Fame player Deion Sanders electrified Jackson State, then Colorado. Super Bowl-winning quarterback Trent Dilfer is trying to turn around his tenure at UAB. Another Super Bowl champion, Terrell Buckley, is a few weeks into his new job leading Mississippi Valley State.

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But the depth of their experience differs. Sanders coached in Texas high schools and worked with top recruits at the Under Armour All-America Game before taking over his first college program. Dilfer spent four years as head coach at a Tennessee high school and tutored top quarterback prospects in the Elite 11 camp series. Buckley’s resume includes a decade as a position coach at programs like Ole Miss and Louisville plus a year as the head coach of the XFL’s Orlando Guardians.

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In a profession where coaches grind for years to climb the ladder, George skipped a few rungs when Tennessee State hired him in April 2021. Jackson and Vick did the same. Is the trend a reflection of the growing importance of money and celebrity in college football’s new era? Schools treating a marquee position as an entry-level job? Or merely Football Championship Subdivision programs with fewer resources and little to lose thinking outside the box?

“Everybody’s gotta start somewhere,” said Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference commissioner Sonja O. Stills, whose conference includes Vick’s Spartans and Jackson’s Hornets. “So why not start at an HBCU?”

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The identity of HBCUs — historically Black colleges and universities — is central to understanding the moves. HBCUs like Tennessee State, Norfolk State and Delaware State were founded to provide higher education to Black students when no other options existed. It’s a mission Norfolk State rector Kim W. Brown highlighted while introducing Vick in December.

“We provide opportunity,” Brown said.

The hires provided a different opportunity when other head coaching doors were closed. Sanders tried and failed to land jobs at Florida State, Arkansas and TCU before an HBCU, Jackson State, gave him a chance in 2020. His Tigers went 27-6 — the program’s best run in more than four decades.

Though Sanders’ previous experience and one-of-one personality make him an unfair comparison to anyone else, he was a starting point in the trend. “The blueprint,” Buckley called him on social media.

Seven months after Sanders’ hiring, George inherited a Tennessee State program that went 5-14 in its two previous seasons. This fall, his Tigers finished 19th in the FCS coaches poll and won their first conference championship in 25 years. The industry noticed.

“With the success Prime and Eddie George and guys like that have had, I think ADs now are starting to really open up to the idea of how prominent NFL players are serious about coaching,” said Willie Simmons, who spent eight seasons as an HBCU head coach before earning the Florida International job at the FBS level this cycle.

Simmons said the lack of coaching experience for Vick and Jackson won’t necessarily show up on the field because both have been around elite players and coaches and stayed around the game in retirement. The bigger potential bumps envisioned by Simmons — who has been in touch with both rookie coaches — are administrative: building staffs with limited resources, mastering the NCAA rulebook and bylaws, figuring out fundraising and recruiting.

The trade-off is a climate where big-name coaches can thrive as the transfer portal and name, image and likeness payments disperse talent across a wider array of schools. At Jackson State, Sanders signed better recruiting classes than a few power-conference FBS programs and poached the nation’s top recruit, eventual Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, from Florida State.

George’s name resonated immediately as Rahmaan sat in the transfer portal after deciding to leave Bowling Green. The Columbus, Ohio, native figures he stuttered and stammered through the first five minutes of his initial phone conversation with the Ohio State legend. Rahmaan agreed to switch from defensive end to tight end and led George’s first Tennessee State team in receiving.

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“It’s like you’re reconnecting with your childhood self,” Rahmaan said. “I felt like a child sitting in the first row in the meeting. When he’s talking, I’m sitting there smiling.

“It’s Eddie George talking. Eddie George, he’s calling me by my nickname.”


Eddie George is 24-22 in four years at Tennessee State. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

The local impact is significant. George is in the Tennessee Titans’ ring of honor after starring at the facility (now called Nissan Stadium) where his Tigers play. Vick grew up 30 miles north of Norfolk and took Virginia Tech to the national title game. Jackson played for three NFL teams (Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore) within 100 miles of Delaware State; an “E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES” chant even broke out during his introductory news conference.

Though it’s too soon to judge the full roster overhauls at Norfolk State and Delaware State, both have seen early bumps. Jackson has added his program’s top two high school signees of the modern recruiting era in three-star receiver Jadyn Robinson and three-star running back Deuce Weston, both of whom had Power 4 interest. He also landed Michigan State transfer Antonio Gates Jr., a former four-star prospect and the son of Jackson’s NFL contemporary.

Vick’s initial portal pickups included a former top-300 national recruit and Clemson signee (David Ojiegbe), one of the SWAC’s top linebackers (Jaden Kelly) and a promising three-star quarterback (South Florida’s Israel Carter).

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It’s hard to ignore Vick’s status in Carter’s announcement. His social media graphic featured Vick in the background, as the Norfolk State coach on one side and the Atlanta Falcons’ quarterback on the other. Carter was in the center in a Spartans jersey. He, like Vick, wore No. 7.

If star power can lead to exposure in recruiting, the programs are also counting on it boosting exposure for the entire university, as Delaware State president Tony Allen acknowledged directly during Jackson’s introductory news conference. Allen said his three goals were to hire a leader of young men, a coach with tactical prowess and someone who could “continue to raise the profile” of a fast-growing HBCU.

The effects are real:

• Sanders’ Jackson State teams appeared on ESPN, ESPN2 and the cover of Sports Illustrated. Google searches for the team during his first fall were more than seven times what they were before his hire. Even after his departure, they’re still higher than they were before his arrival.

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• Tennessee State’s football revenue and expenses have doubled since George’s hiring. Both figures totaled almost $7.1 million in the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. The Tigers’ football budget soared from average in the Ohio Valley Conference in 2018 to first, by far, in 2022.

• Over the past 20 years, the only times “Norfolk State” was googled more than December (the month of Vick’s hiring) were its NCAA Tournament runs in 2012 (an upset of second-seeded Missouri) and 2021 (a one-point First Four win over Appalachian State).

At the MEAC, Stills said she received an immediate, initial influx from potential sponsors who wanted to “ride the wave right now.”

“Because HBCUs have always been underfunded, overlooked, they give us an opportunity to get more national exposure,” Stills said. “It gives us an opportunity to show a look into the institution — how we graduate more Black doctors, lawyers, engineers.”

And, if Vick and Jackson are successful, perhaps a new way to graduate Black coaches to the highest level.

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Minorities remain underrepresented as FBS head coaches, and Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman just became the first Black head coach to lead his team to the national title game. Stills said she can envision HBCUs becoming feeders to the FBS as former pros learn the ropes in the FCS.

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The cynical read in the profession is that the exposure and financial impact of hiring green NFL stars trumped on-field possibility — the idea that, as one coaching agent put it, “Mike Vick’s gonna put butts in seats” matters more than winning games.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his relationships in the industry.

The traditional path has been to grind your way up from grad assistant to position coach to coordinator to head coach. The MEAC’s other four head coaches were all hired with at least 15 years on college staffs. Two had college head coaching experience, and a third (Howard’s Larry Scott) had an interim stint leading Miami. Vick and Jackson fast-forwarded ahead as if the most visible positions on campus were entry-level gigs.

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“It’s like they’re learning on the job at a major D-I institution where so many of these guys are fighting for years to become the head coach, and now they’re just thrown into it because they have the NFL label next to them,” the agent said.

Then again, the profession has never been a true meritocracy. Coaches fill out their staff by hiring buddies or agents’ connections. A famous name can help a coach’s son or nephew land a first job. Is a famous name from NFL stardom any different?

The worst-case scenario for Vick and Jackson is what happened in the 2022-23 cycle at another HBCU, Bethune-Cookman. The school was set to hire Baltimore Ravens legend Ed Reed — who spent three seasons as a Miami support staffer — before he went on a profane social media rant about the program’s resources. The deal collapsed, and the Wildcats hired alumnus Raymond Woodie Jr. His quarter-century of coaching experience included more than a decade as an FBS assistant.

A more optimistic possibility is George’s Tennessee State tenure. Ohio Valley commissioner Beth DeBauche said she was initially curious about how George would fare in her league. Since then, she has seen a professionally run team — “a program that has had its house in order,” she said — with no disciplinary issues or other problems.

And after starting with two losing seasons, George improved to 6-5 in Year 3 and went 9-4 with an FCS playoff appearance last fall. That was good enough to earn him an interview with the Chicago Bears last month.

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“There’s proof in the pudding,” DeBauche said. “We’ve seen the success, and others have seen this success in being able to build a program.”

There’s a risk, of course, just like any coaching move. But the risk is relative, as former Norfolk State administrator Glen Mason knows.

Mason is a longtime resident of Virginia’s Tidewater area and graduated from Norfolk State in 1983. He watched his alma mater’s past two coaches go a combined 36-65. The Spartans’ lone conference championship in the past four decades (2011) was vacated for NCAA violations. Mason was the program’s sports information director when the school filled its 30,000-seat on-campus stadium in its 1997 debut; the venue has had only one crowd larger than 28,000 since then (though Norfolk State did rank 11th in the FCS in average attendance in 2024 at 14,544 despite its 4-8 record).

The challenges may be even greater for Jackson at Delaware State. The Hornets have lost 23 of their past 25 games. They haven’t had a winning conference record since 2013 and have won the MEAC championship only once since 1990. Their average attendance last season (3,333) ranked last in the conference and No. 102 out of 130 FCS teams.

With that as the floor, what does anyone have to lose?

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“There is no risk/reward for me,” Mason said.

If the potential risk is more losing, then the potential reward is what Rahmaan experienced firsthand at Tennessee State. He credits the extra attention George brought for getting him a spot at a Seattle Seahawks camp and stints in the UFL/USFL. He still beams when George texts him on his birthday.

Rahmaan doesn’t know Vick or Jackson personally, but he knows enough to think their new players are set to benefit, too.

“I love to see all that happening,” Rahmaan said. “I love to even think about the opportunities those kids are going to have.”

 The Athletic’s Ralph D. Russo contributed to this report.

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(Top photos of DeSean Jackson and Michael Vick: Eric Hartline / Imagn Images and Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

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Book Review: ‘Theory & Practice,’ by Michelle de Kretser

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Book Review: ‘Theory & Practice,’ by Michelle de Kretser

THEORY & PRACTICE, by Michelle de Kretser


In the 1980s, an intellectual revolution took hold on college campuses, spreading, this newspaper reported at the time, “like kudzu.” Under the deceptively unassuming shorthand of “theory,” a heady brew of philosophical schools and ideas — many of them imported from France — upended longstanding assumptions about language, meaning, reality and the human self. According to theory, words referred not to the world they were tasked with representing but only to other words in a ruthless system where meaning was elusive, reality an illusion and the self a romantic fiction perpetrated by the capitalist bourgeoisie.

This revolution is in full swing when the 24-year-old narrator of Michelle de Kretser’s deftly crafted new novel, “Theory & Practice,” leaves her job in market research and moves from Sydney to Melbourne in 1986 to attend a graduate program in English literature. She buys a vintage dress in “Intellectual Black,” finds a feminist scholar to supervise her thesis on Virginia Woolf and falls in with a loose circle of ironic creatives: a sax player in a feminist band, a sculptor who “looked like Patti Smith but with much stormier hair” and a Marxist lecturer in art history who throws a party for his brand-new Apple Macintosh — “a boxy object in orthopedic non-color” that presides over his desk surrounded by awed guests.

Soon the narrator embarks on a consuming affair with Kit, an engineering student who’s in a “deconstructed relationship” with someone else. Yet she’s unprepared for how her field has changed since she was last in school: “Theory had taken book, essay, novel, story, poem and play, and replaced them all with text,” she marvels. “It was necessary to make the text confess. Applying pressure to soft, secret places, the critic exposed fake oppositions, crude essentialisms, bourgeois hegemonies, totalizing mechanisms, humanist teleologies, squalid repressions, influential aporias, and many more textual fragilities. The text bucked and shrieked under the critic’s ministrations, but the critic was merciless.”

The excesses of 1980s academia are ripe fodder for de Kretser’s mordant wit, but her aim here is more ambitious — and the results more rewarding. An Australian novelist of the first rank, who, like the narrator of “Theory & Practice,” emigrated from Sri Lanka as a child, de Kretser has long been fascinated by the gap between our ideals and our actions — between theory and practice — including with respect to the novel itself. Her last book, “Scary Monsters,” featured two obliquely linked narratives printed back to back and upside down; “Theory & Practice” is also a bold experiment in form.

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Q&A: Rose Zhang on her TGL investment, the LPGA’s future and slow play

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Q&A: Rose Zhang on her TGL investment, the LPGA’s future and slow play

There are a lot of things to admire about Rose Zhang. Before turning pro two years ago, she was arguably the winningest amateur in the history of women’s golf. Now she’s competing on the LPGA and already has a pair of professional wins at age 21. Zhang is as poised as they get and her youth — combined with a swing that could make a robot look inconsistent — has allowed her to become one of the faces of the game’s Gen-Z movement.

Zhang is doing it all while attending Stanford University as a communications major, taking 22 credits this winter (she completes one 10-week quarter each year to balance school with the international LPGA schedule). As Zhang finishes her third-to-last quarter of classes en route to a 2027 graduation date, she caught up with The Athletic to talk about the state of the LPGA, her adjusted preseason game plan and her new foray into golf’s simulator experiment. Zhang is now a minority investor in The Bay Golf Club, TGL’s San Francisco team. According to TGL, active discussions are taking place with the LPGA to devise competitions that could integrate top female players. With virtual holes, players in a mixed event could all hit from the same tee boxes with the technology adjusting for appropriate distances. The prospect of that arrangement is certainly enticing, and Zhang, for one, is intrigued by it.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

You’re the newest investor in TGL. How did that come about?

I’d heard about it on social media, but I never really thought about becoming an investor. My agency brought the opportunity to me. It’s low stakes for me because I’m not the one playing out there. It’s cool to be on the investing side of things, this is one of the first things I’ve invested in, in the golf world at least. The Bay Area has played a huge role in my life and career. I’m a student-athlete at Stanford, I play a lot of golf in the city of SF and being able to be a part of it in a more meaningful way was my first thought. To see other athletes like Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andre Iguodala involved makes it even more amazing. It’s going to be cool to watch the team on TV and say, “Oh, I have a little part in that!” Not really … but I do. I’m invested in it emotionally too.

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Have you watched much TGL?

I have, with the cool technology and the indoor facility it gives an energy that even non-golfers can enjoy. I think it’s a really good platform to expose different parts of the game, show people’s personalities, and have a little bit of fun. Some of my non-golf friends are like, “Oh, this thing is like a whole stadium and you’re playing golf indoors? What does that even mean?” You’ve got all these crazy lights — it basically turns into a show. It’s a good source of entertainment for those who aren’t exposed to it. You don’t get to see golfers’ personalities because we don’t talk. The entertaining side of all of this is that players are mic’d up and get to interact with fans and each other. People like to see competition and camaraderie but some kind of flare to each personality.

Should LPGA players be a part of TGL?

I think that’s a topic for discussion. That would definitely be very interesting. It brings a lot of variety with the format that it is — indoor golf, one vs. one or team vs. team. Having diversity really brings this sort of platform to life. I can definitely see the LPGA hopping on board with it, having specific players participate in a TGL event. I played “The Match” with Rory McIlroy, Lexi Thompson and Max Homa. It’s similar to that, but it’s inside and indoors so it’s fair play for everyone. I think a lot of people don’t understand, there are a lot of characters out there on the LPGA Tour. You’ve got a lot of people with personalities that are so suited for this type of format.

Who should TGL recruit from the LPGA?

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We’re talking about popular characters here. To start off, in my opinion, I’d love to see Meghan Khang hop on there. She knows how to talk, that’s for sure. Charley Hull is a world renowned name, it’d be really entertaining to see what she does. If you want really good players, you’ve got Lydia Ko, you’ve got Nelly Korda.


A highlight of Zhang’s 2024 was her appearance on a winning Solheim Cup team. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)

You made your season debut at the HGV Tournament of Champions and posted at T10 finish, but we know that was just a break from your winter studies at Stanford. How has your offseason been treating you?

It’s been a lot more academic than actual golf. I’m excited, I’m doing a lot of cool projects. I’m hosting an AJGA event. I’ve been focusing on school, hanging out with friends, and being with people I haven’t been able to hang out with in the last two years. It’s really nice to have some bonding time and just enjoy the offseason a little bit more. It’s a grind, given I’m still balancing academics and golf. But the grind honestly challenges me.

What classes are you taking this semester?

I’m taking a Politics of Algorithms, Deliberative Democracy and its Critics, a Hebrew Jewish Short Stories class, a Science Technology & Society class and a class called Sleep and Dreams. It’s a cognitive science class. You get bonus points if you fall asleep in lecture. You get woken up by a squirt gun.

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Did you intentionally decide to take a step back from golf and throw yourself into school this year?

Definitely. Especially with last year, I was able to balance golf and school, but my social life was deterred a little bit. I had a lot of difficulty in balancing myself and my health, physically. It was a little bit hard to navigate in that sense. This year I was a lot more intentional. I’m taking 22 units of classes. That’s a big load for any student. I essentially decided to finish my academics and prioritize that, and then when I could rest and recover that’s when I could spend time with people. Just be a little bit lower maintenance, so when I start playing at the end of March I’m not completely tired and wiped out from the last three months. It’s been a lot better. I personally wish to prepare the best way I can starting in March. With a super long season my priority is to rest a little bit more.

What have been some of those hiccups in your health?

Everything piled up on its own. I did a lot of intense practicing at school, and I had a lot of class as well. I also just went full speed into the season. I spread myself a little thin in practice and the way I was doing things. By the end of the year, I had this recurring thing with my wrist that started back in 2020, and it just came back. I don’t want it to remain chronic, so that’s a priority. I’m slowly starting to load my wrist again to make sure it’s strong. You can go to physical therapy and have the inflammation resolved, but to strengthen it or at least bring it back to its normal performance, you’ve going to need to do circuits that involve resistance and weight. That’ll get me where I want to be.

Do you have any mindset changes or goals you’ve hoping to make in 2025?

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The No. 1 thing that I have in mind — and I was talking to my entire team about it — is I just want to make sure I’m intentional with the things I’ve been doing and the schedule I curate with them. I want to stay accountable for balancing everything and actually do everything, for example. Making sure I’m going through workouts with my trainer, resting my body and relaxing it, giving myself times where I can work with my coach and practice efficiently. I created a schedule for myself, and I wish to just go with that. So when things happen on tour and there’s a lot going on, I have a plan to fall back on. Last year, I misdirected in the way I was preparing myself for events. So that’s the main priority this year. I’m not so worried about the results as much. If you’re able to plan the process and go with it, that’s when results come.

Do you find comfort in sticking to a process?

I find freedom in it. Once you know you’re on a trajectory that you curated, that’s when you have a little bit more agency to at least think about if you need to deviate plans. I was doing a little bit too much of going here, going there — not fulfilling my priorities.

You started using AimPoint this fall. Has it been helping you and what has the process been like learning it?

I started using it at The Annika, actually, and that week was my best putting week on tour to date. I feel very encouraged by it. Obviously, I still have to do some practice. I do believe that it’s helped me a lot, especially with my confidence. And the slow play thing — if you do it right, it doesn’t slow other people up. As long as you’re courteous, that’s the biggest thing.

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Zhang changed her putting routine late last year, switching to the AimPoint strategy. (Julio Aguilar / Getty Images)

Speaking of slow play, the LPGA released a new slow play policy. Do you think the tour has a slow play problem?

It’s definitely been voiced by a lot of players. We take a lot of time waiting, especially on par 5s and par 3s. It slows up your day, and it slows things for those who are watching. At the end of the day, I think it’s up to players to create their routine to allow them not to be the slow player out there. There are players who struggle with that, which I understand. I’m just glad the LPGA has this regulation for everyone to follow. I’m not really a fast player, but I get paranoid about being slow. I grew up playing junior golf on the AJGA, and you get these red cards when you’re slow.

The LPGA is on the hunt for a new commissioner. What should their top priorities be?

There’s a difficult balance in the business aspect of golf and the actual competitive world of golf, so I understand how challenging it is. The biggest thing I’d wish for the new commissioner to do is at least provide communication or at least clear communication for what they intend on doing, and what you wish to relay to the players. You have to grow the LPGA through engagement, through deals, through sponsorships. This requires a lot of EQ and requires a lot of intelligence in that sense. I’d say with that, the new commissioner really needs to embody those basic things that could really elevate the LPGA. It’s not easy. They have to have the players’ best interests too, which is a fine line to tackle. That’s why I say communication is super key. If the players understand where the business mind comes from, they may want to critique things but they’d also be OK with things if they at least have a voice that can tell them what’s going on. That’s the biggest thing.

Do you think the LPGA does enough to promote its stars?

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I don’t believe so. I speak for a lot of players who also believe that. The reason is, I think it takes characters to really showcase what the tour is about — to give people a story or something to engage with. The LPGA has been trying. I don’t think that it’s not happening. They’re in the process of creating more engagement for LPGA players to be exposed to the public. There are already characters on tour who are willing to fill those shoes. It’s honestly just the strategic side of things now. Exposing them to platforms, media and other people. A lot of players are already willing to do so. You need to have both ends of the stick. The player who is willing to put themselves out there, and a tour that is willing to push you out there. There are a lot of initiatives happening behind the scenes. I’m not discouraged by them not doing anything, it’s more so they just haven’t done much yet.

(Top photo: Cliff Hawkins / Getty Images)

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