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<\/a><\/p>\nLike many young girls, Heck grew up idolizing S\u00f6renstam. To win an award named after her favorite player is a true honor, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you would have told me when I was a little bitty girl, that one day Annika would even know my name, I think I would have cried,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heck, along with her older sister, Abby, and younger sister, Anna, grew up on the golf course. What drew her to the game was the same thing that attracted her to Stanford\u2019s Air Force Reserve Officers\u2019 Training Corps program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love things that are so mentally stimulating and so difficult,\u201d Heck said. \u201cAnd I love the challenge of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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When she was as young as 4 years old, Heck spoke of wanting to be a professional golfer. Kelly Gavin, Courtesy Augusta National<\/p>\n
Heck spent nearly all day, every day on the course honing her game, sacrificing social events such as sleepovers and summer camps. She had a clear goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember when I was 4 years old, people used to ask, \u2018What do you want to be when you grow up?\u2019\u201d Heck said. \u201cI would always say professional golfer and everyone kind of laughed at me, and they thought it was cute. But in my mind, it was just never a question.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2017, at age 15, Heck qualified for the U.S. Women\u2019s Open at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey. The youngest player in the field, she did more than just show up \u2013 she made the cut and finished T33.<\/p>\n
Her path to professional golf was on track, but a back injury during her junior year of high school changed her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout golf I realized I truly didn\u2019t know who I am,\u201d Heck said. \u201cHaving to put the clubs away I had a full-on identity crisis, like, what am I without this game?\u201d<\/p>\n
Heck said she became depressed. Even when she returned to golf a few months later during her senior year, it wasn\u2019t the same. Some days she didn\u2019t want to get out of bed or do anything at all.<\/p>\n
In 2019, during the fall of her senior year, Heck represented the United States in the Junior Solheim Cup at Gleneagles in Scotland. As part of the experience, the junior U.S. team met with that year\u2019s American Solheim Cup team, which included players such as Lexi Thompson and Nelly Korda.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe spoke about what it means to represent your country and I was just starry-eyed, jaw on the ground. It just revived me.\u201d \u2013 Rachel Heck<\/p>\n
While her teammates flocked to the professional golfers, Heck wasn\u2019t having fun. She says she was at her low point and didn\u2019t even want to be there. But then a guest speaker took the stage: Nora Tyson, a retired U.S. Navy veteran who commanded the Third Fleet from 2015-2017. Tyson was the first woman to command a Navy ship fleet.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe spoke about what it means to represent your country and I was just starry-eyed, jaw on the ground,\u201d Heck said. \u201cIt just revived me.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Tyson\u2019s speech, it was time for the team picture. While Heck\u2019s teammates rushed to be next to their favorite players, Heck went straight to Tyson.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe looked me in the eye and said, \u2018If you\u2019re looking for a sign, this is it,\u2019\u201d Heck said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d found her calling. As a Stanford freshman, Heck started the four-year ROTC program. She said that when she started the program, she didn\u2019t have plans to finish it. Having to balance golf, academics and the military, Heck wanted to make sure she liked the work first. And as it turned out, she loved it.<\/p>\n
\u201cGolf is so individual,\u201d Heck said. \u201cBeing a part of the military representing and fighting for your country, you\u2019re such a small part of something so much bigger than yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Heck chooses to use the military experience, not professional golf, as a way to see the world. Courtesy Rachel Heck<\/p>\n
Her golf was going very well, too. As a freshman, she won six tournaments, including the first NCAA individual title in Stanford women\u2019s golf history. She also won the Annika Award, which is given to the best female Division I golfer. Heck was also part of the winning 2021 U.S. Curtis Cup team and an NCAA Championship team with Stanford as a sophomore.<\/p>\n
But Heck subsequently encountered injury and illness, forcing her to miss much of her junior and senior seasons. During her senior year, Stanford coach Anne Walker sat her down after yet another unpromising MRI on her shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s like, \u2018Hey Rachel, you\u2019ve had an amazing career. Why don\u2019t you just call it,\u2019\u201d Heck recalled. \u201cI think it was hard for other people to see me just in so much pain and kind of miserable all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
By now Heck had realized that life as a professional golfer was not for her, but she\u2019d worked too hard to simply give up. She wanted to play. She wanted to win.<\/p>\n
And she did. Playing in the anchor match of the 2024 NCAA Division I Women\u2019s Golf Championship, Heck defeated UCLA\u2019s Kate Villegas to clinch Stanford\u2019s second NCAA Championship in three years and third overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still can\u2019t believe that happened,\u201d Heck said. \u201cThat felt like a storybook ending. I couldn\u2019t have written it any better myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduating from Stanford last year, Heck worked as an analyst for investment firm KKR until June of this year, leaving to pursue more Air Force assignments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where my heart was and I wanted to give that everything I had,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While Heck hasn\u2019t played much golf since graduating from Stanford, she hopes to play more in the future and qualify for USGA championships. But her priority is the military, and she hopes her work leads her to exploring places such as Africa, Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n
Heck works as a public affairs officer in the Air Force. She focuses on telling the public what the Air Force is doing and why. She maintains media and community relationships, but one of her favorite parts is telling the stories of other military members.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to go play reporter and interview people and ask about their lives and what they do and what their work means to them,\u201d Heck said.<\/p>\n
While Heck hasn\u2019t played much golf since graduating from Stanford, she hopes to play more in the future and qualify for USGA championships. But her priority is the military, and she hopes her work leads her to exploring places such as Africa, Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe military as opposed to the LPGA is my chosen method to see the world,\u201d Heck said.<\/p>\n
Heck\u2019s chosen path is a great example of what the Annika Inspiration Award seeks to highlight, S\u00f6renstam said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is so important for all these talented young ladies to realize that there is a lot out there for them,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we are honest about it, it\u2019s very hard to make it as a professional golfer. Not all our alumnae will play professionally, and that is just fine. We just want them to work hard in whatever profession they choose and to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2025 Global Golf Post LL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rachel Heck at Augusta National during her days as an active amateur golfer Shanna Lockwood, Courtesy Augusta National…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[121460,39778,427,121461,99],"class_list":["post-213619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-annika-inspiration-award","tag-annika-sorenstam","tag-golf","tag-rachel-heck","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SHANNA-LOCKWOOD-2022040275847.jpg\")
Rachel Heck at Augusta National during her days as an active amateur golfer Shanna Lockwood, Courtesy Augusta National<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-07-at-11.07.02-AM.png\")
Lieutenant Rachel Heck Courtesy Rachel Heck<\/p>\n