Rachel Heck walked away from competitive golf in 2024 after clinching the winning point for Stanford in the NCAA Women\u2019s Championship. She announced she wouldn\u2019t turn professional and began a job in private equity. And now the 24-year-old will compete in the U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur Championship at The Honors Course in her home state of Tennessee.<\/p>\n
As she prepares to play in a USGA championship for the 13th time in her career, she\u2019s feeling joy on the golf course again. And there have been golf-related opportunities this summer that haven\u2019t involved competing. Heck served as an on-course commentator for the U.S. Girls\u2019 Junior Championship in mid-July.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no desire to be on tour and live that lifestyle, but I’m so excited to be back working in the golf world with Golf Channel and whatever opportunities arise from that, and starting to compete again,\u201d Heck said. \u201cIt’s been such a blast.\u201d <\/p>\n
The U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur, being played for the 126th time, has held a significant place in Heck\u2019s golf life. She has competed in the championship eight times previously, and twice reached the semifinals, in 2021 and 2023.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s event, which begins on Tuesday and runs through Sunday\u2019s 36-hole match-play final, features a deep lineup of amateur stars in the 156-player field, including nine USGA champions. Among the most prominent names are Asterisk Talley, the No. 1-ranked junior in America and winner in the 2024 U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur Four-Ball; Aphrodite Deng, the 2025 U.S. Girls\u2019 Junior champion; and Rianne Malixi, who captured both the U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur and U.S. Girls\u2019 Junior in 2024.<\/p>\n
The golfers will compete at a venue that has a long relationship with the USGA. The Honors Course, which is north of Chattanooga in Ooltewah, was founded by Coca-Cola bottling heir Jack Lupton and designed by Pete Dye in 1983. It hosted its first USGA championship in 1991, when Mitch Voges beat Manny Zerman in the U.S. Amateur final. Three years later, the women\u2019s Curtis Cup Match was played there and ended in a rare tie. More USGA champions would be crowned at The Honors Course: Kevin Marsh in the 2005 U.S. Mid-Amateur, Terry Frohnmayer in the 2011 U.S. Senior Women\u2019s Amateur, Min Woo Lee in the 2016 U.S. Junior Amateur and Louis Brown in the 2024 U.S. Senior Amateur. The U.S. Amateur is scheduled to return in 2031.<\/p>\n
To be back in the U.S. Women\u2019s Amateur adds another chapter to Heck\u2019s long and circuitous golf life.<\/p>\n
As a freshman in high school, Heck committed to play college golf at Stanford. That summer, at just 15, she qualified for the U.S. Women\u2019s Open and made the cut. She continued her strong play throughout high school, winning AJGA events, competing in more LPGA majors and the Junior Solheim Cup. But then she got hurt. A back injury forced her to take a few months away from golf in her junior year of high school, and during that time, she struggled. <\/p>\n
Golf had been everything to her for so long that without it, she didn\u2019t know who she was. She says she experienced an identity crisis. And even when she was physically healthy enough to play again, she didn\u2019t feel right. The joy she had once felt towards the game had disappeared. She was depressed. <\/p>\n
In searching for an answer, she decided that she would join the ROTC program when she started at Stanford. Her parents were understandably wary. Playing Division I golf at a school as academically intense as Stanford was an enormous task in and of itself. To voluntarily add the pursuit of a military career\u2014was it possible for one person to do it all?<\/p>\n
Heck proved that it\u2019s not only possible, but it\u2019s possible to do it really well.<\/p>\n
She kept up academically, fulfilled her ROTC responsibilities and won six individual titles for the Cardinal. She won everything in the postseason her freshman year: the Pac-12 Conference Championship, NCAA Regionals and the individual NCAA Championship title. <\/p>\n
The next few years were harder. Heck faced an onslaught of injuries and illness. She got mononucleosis. The pain and numbness in her shoulder and arm, diagnosed as Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, became so bad that she had a rib surgically removed to relieve compressed nerves and vessels. <\/p>\n
\u201cMentally, it was more painful than any physical pain I experienced,\u201d Heck said. \u201cJust the constant loop of getting sick or injured, being out for a little bit, then trying really hard to get back, then playing for a little bit, and then getting hurt again.\u201d <\/p>\n
During her senior year, Heck was in her coach\u2019s office, weeping, still dealing with flareups in her shoulder and arm. Coach Anne Walker asked Heck if it would make sense to call it. She didn\u2019t want to see Heck in pain anymore. But again, Heck decided to play. She announced that she would not turn pro after college. The injuries were part of it, but moreover, golf had felt like a job for long enough. When she entered the postseason in 2024, she experienced a newfound freedom on the course. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy senior year postseason, I think, was the most fun I’ve ever had on a golf course,\u201d Heck said. <\/p>\n
The Cardinal made it to the match-play finals at NCAAs, and it was Heck who earned the point that clinched the title. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything about that postseason felt absolutely magical,\u201d Heck said. <\/p>\n
She pursued something completely different after graduation. She put her golf clubs away, and even when her now-fianc\u00e9, Grant Worthington, wanted to play, she\u2019d just ride in the cart and watch him. She interned for a private equity firm and worked there for a year. At the same time, she was serving in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. <\/p>\n
But Heck realized working in finance has something in common with high-level competitive golf: It can consume your entire life. And she knew that wasn\u2019t quite what she was ready for. She wanted to continue with the military, and she\u2019s now a First Lieutenant. Her base is in Illinois, and she\u2019s required to spend a minimum of a month there throughout the year, though she goes more. <\/p>\n