As Rachel Heck nears the end of her college golf career, she has decided that the LPGA isn’t for her.
Heck, the 22-year-old Stanford senior who won an NCAA individual title as a freshman and has climbed as high as second in the world amateur rankings, penned a first-person essay for No Laying Up in which she explained her reasoning for remaining amateur after graduation this summer and starting an internship not in professional golf but rather private equity. Heck, a political science major, also will be pinned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.
Heck has battled numerous injuries in recent years, including thoracic outlet syndrome, which forced Heck to have a rib removed last spring and helped keep her out for all but one round of the postseason. She hasn’t won since capturing her seventh college individual crown in March 2022, and she’s teed it up just twice for the Cardinal this season while slipping to world No. 67.
“I was strongly considering attributing my decision to my injuries,” Heck wrote. “It is true that even if I wanted to, I do not know if my body would hold up on tour. But frankly, after a couple of years of painful deliberation, I have come to realize that I do not want to play professional golf.”
Heck, who hails from Memphis, was one of the top juniors in the country, her prep career highlighted by an appearance in the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open in Bedminster, New Jersey, where she tied for 33rd. But it was while in high school that Heck suffered a back injury, which forced the golf clubs out of her hands for a couple months. After that break, Heck revealed that she became depressed, needing to find joy in something outside of golf.
That something ended up being Air Force ROTC.
Though Heck won five times in her debut semester at Stanford, a spring run that culminated in a sweep of conference, regional and national individual titles, her health issues have kept her from equaling that level of play in successive seasons. Heck said in recent years she’s “grappled with anger, hope, depression, joy, and everything in between.”
But her studies and dream of serving in the Air Force have since filled the void left by the desire to play professional golf.
Last summer, Heck spent 18 straight days at ROTC field training, not touching a club. Less than 48 hours later, she was beginning what would be a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur.
It’s those USGA championships that Heck wants to still play as an amateur, even as she pursues other career paths.
“I do not want a life on the road and in the public eye,” Heck continued. “I no longer dream of the U.S. Open trophies and the Hall of Fame. And I realize now that these dreams were never what my dad intended when he first put a club in my hand. He pushed me when I was young so that I could find myself in the position I am right now: Stepping into the future equipped with the skills to tackle any challenge and the courage to pave my own path. He insisted I lived a normal life so that I could recognize that true happiness does not come from accolades but from the love of those around me. He gave me everything so that I could leave college feeling as though I had the world in the palm of my hand.
“In the spring he and my mom will pin on my Lieutenant bars. They will watch me walk across the stage and receive my Stanford degree. I will begin an internship in private equity.
“Golf did, indeed, take me far.”
