A lot was anticipated of Lottie Woad. The phenom has confronted a flurry of questions on when she deliberate to show professional for the previous a number of months, and her win on the KPMG Girls’s Irish Open a number of weeks in the past solely heaped accelerant on an already blazing hearth of pleasure surrounding her arrival. A T3 on the Amundi Evian Championship adopted her Irish Open win, after which Woad, a 21-year-old rising star, turned professional as the primary LPGA participant to earn her card by the LEAP program.
She arrived at this week’s ISPS HANDA Girls’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Hyperlinks because the discuss of girls’s golf. Her storied profession at Florida State and her spectacular win on the 2024 ANWA pointed to a shiny future. Add within the latest run on the Irish and Evian, and all eyes have been understandably on Lottie Woad this week in Scotland.
If she felt the stress, you’d by no means comprehend it.
Woad grabbed the 36-hole lead with a sterling seven-under 65 on Friday and fired a five-under 67 on Saturday to take a two-shot lead into Sunday. Woad showcased spectacular resolve and killer intuition Sunday in Ayshire. World No. 1 Nelly Korda made an early run, however some brief misses doomed her probabilities. Hyo Joo Kim equipped fixed stress on Woad all through Sunday’s last jaunt round Dundonald. Woad noticed her two-shot lead evaporate halfway by Sunday’s spherical, however then the Englishwoman flashed her elite wedge play by knocking it shut for a birdie at 13 to retake the lead. One other birdie at 14 adopted, and Woad sealed her historic win with a last circle on the 18th to card a three-shot victory over Kim.
“I believe it’s fairly arduous to do this, however very particular to win in my first occasion,” Woad mentioned after her victory. “, everybody was chasing me at present, and managed to keep up the lead and performed actually properly down the stretch and hit a whole lot of good photographs, which is sweet.
“I don’t actually know learn how to describe it,” Woad mentioned later of her latest stretch. Simply been capturing low scores, which is all the time good.”
With the win, Woad joins Rose Zhang and Beverly Hanson as the one gamers to win of their skilled debuts.
Like Zhang was in 2022, Woad’s arrival has been drastically anticipated. However in contrast to Zhang, who has been splitting her time between golf and ending her Stanford diploma, Woad seems to be singularly centered on digging it out of the grime. A humble, mild-mannered murderer whose sole curiosity is in taking part in top-level golf.
“It may need seemed much less worrying than possibly it was at occasions,” Woad mentioned of her Scottish Open win. “However I believe I solely had like three bogeys, which, I imply, the wind wasn’t too dangerous the primary due days. However on hyperlinks golf, it’s positively about bogey avoidance. That was in all probability the important thing to profitable.”
Three bogeys. For comparability, Korda made 5 on Sunday alone. Even when the wind is down, hyperlinks golf exacts a value for misplayed photographs. Woad had few of these this week. In reality, in her final three occasions, Woad is 55 underneath with a scoring common of 67.4.
Discover your adjective to explain Lottie Woad’s latest run and arrival on the skilled stage — spectacular, good, chic — and it wouldn’t do it justice.
With the win, Woad earned a $300,000 winner’s examine, sufficient factors to place her into the highest 50 within the Race for the CME and sufficient factors to vault her into the highest 30 within the Rolex World Rankings. She now has previous winner’s standing and a two-year exemption.
All that’s nice for Woad, however her on-time (or forward of schedule) arrival is the true prize for ladies’s golf.
As new LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler takes the reins seeking to create extra momentum for ladies’s golf, having a blossoming younger star to go together with a celebrity in Korda, an electrical expertise in World No. 2 Jeeno Thitikul, a resurgent Minjee Lee, a Corridor-of-Famer in Lydia Ko and the extraordinarily widespread Charley Hull ought to give girls’s golf what it must hit the launch pad in the identical method the WNBA has in recent times.
Kessler has a whole lot of obstacles to navigate as he guides the LPGA into this subsequent period. He has to get the published found out. The ultimate two hours of Woad’s Scottish Open win have been placed on CNBC, which is an improve from the app-only reside protection remedy the remainder of the event received. Star energy offers juice, and that opens doorways. The LPGA has it, however extra is all the time welcome.
Woad can hopefully assist ship on that a part of her promise.
She’ll arrive at subsequent week’s AIG Girls’s Open at Royal Porthcawl because the pre-tournament headliner and maybe the event favourite.
As I wrote yesterday, girls’s golf has wanted an injection of buzz. With Korda nonetheless looking for her first win of the season, there was a dip in juice this season exterior of the U.S. Girls’s Open at Erin Hills.
Woad’s historic win and emergence on the professional scene will change that heading into the 12 months’s last main,
That’s the ability of stars, and ladies’s golf’s newest one simply arrived in Scotland.
Josh Schrock
Golf.com Editor
Josh Schrock is a author and reporter for Golf.com. Earlier than becoming a member of GOLF, Josh was the Chicago Bears insider for NBC Sports activities Chicago. He beforehand lined the 49ers and Warriors for NBC Sports activities Bay Space. A local Oregonian and UO alum, Josh spends his free time mountain climbing together with his spouse and canine, considering of how the Geese will break his coronary heart once more, and attempting to change into semi-proficient at chipping. A real romantic for golf, Josh won’t ever cease attempting to interrupt 90 and by no means lose religion that Rory McIlroy’s main drought will finish (up to date: he did it). Josh Schrock will be reached at josh.schrock@golf.com.
