England’s Lottie Woad has kept her cool to complete an astonishing debut as a pro with a three-stroke victory at the ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open.
It’s wrong to tag her as a star of tomorrow when she so emphatically arrived today as a star at the head of an elite field boasting 15 major winners.
Korea’s Hyo-Joo Kim caught her briefly over the final nine holes at Dundonald Links to seemingly set up a grandstand finish in the breeze.
In a blink, it was the 21-year-old Woad who rose to the occasion with back-to-back birdies on the 13th and 14th to snap out of a run of nine straight pars. She was quickly out to a three-stroke lead again with the experienced Korean the one to trip up with back-to-back bogeys.
Even when she found the long grass to the left of the green on the 16th to record just her third bogey in 72 holes, Woad had already built the winning buffer.
It was hard to believe Woad was a youngster playing in her first tournament as a professional. She looked unruffled on course with her fairway-splitting drives and her precise short irons which gave her birdie looks all week. The only hitch with her driving is off-course. She doesn’t yet have a license to drive a car.
You needed to watch playing partner Nanna Koerstz Madsen searching for her wayward ball in the gorse on the final hole or world No.1 Nelly Korda hitting approach shots that skipped away down a slope off the greens to realise the hazards of this course on Scotland’s west coast.
Woad’s rounds of 67-65-67-68 for a winning total of 21-under-par continued a remarkable stretch of golf in July.
She is a stunning 55-under for three events with 12 sub-par rounds for her Irish Open triumph as an amateur, her third at the Evian Championship in France and now this statement in Scotland.
Other golfers might have let out the emotion of it all with a fist pump, a shout of joy or two arms raised to the grey skies. Woad politely raised her golf ball twice to the galleries. That was all before a happy grin when giving her mum and dad a hug by the final green.
The gallery by the closing hole was still warmly applauding her after she’d sunk a final birdie putt from inside a metre to close with a four-under 68.
Woad’s calm and collected manner was reflected in her media conference post-round. She was clearly proud of her achievement but as understated as a tap-in putt.
Winng on debut as a pro was sinking in.
“Yeah, I think it’s quite hard to do that, but very special to win in my first event. You know, everyone was chasing me today, and I managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch. I hit a lot of good shots, which is nice,” Woad said.
On course, she hadn’t really absorbed that Hyo-Joo Kim (70-66-66-68) had made up the three-shot deficit she began the day with by shooting seven birdies in her opening 14 holes.
“I didn’t really know the score most of the back nine. There wasn’t really any scoreboards to be honest. I only knew on 18 or 17 when I saw that I had two shots,” Woad said.
Woad just knew if she kept hitting the ball close enough to the pin, the birdies would come her way. On the par four 13th, with a tricky crosswind, she nailed her approach shot to just over a metre and sunk the putt. On the par five 14th, her second shot just through the green gave her an easy run at another birdie.
Family support in the galleries meant a lot.
“Dad has been here all week. Mum came up on the train for today. I was hoping I wasn’t going to mess it up,” Woad said with a smile.
“It might have looked less stressful than maybe it was at times, but I think I only had like three bogeys (for the week). For links golf, it’s definitely about bogey avoidance. That was probably the key to winning.”
Hyo-Joo Kim finished second at 18-under while fellow Korean Sei-Young Kim (68-67-66-73) and fast-finishing Spaniard Julia Lopez Ramirez (70-71-68-65) shared third on 14-under.
Korda (68-66-70-71) made a fine early run with four straight birdies from the third hole before fading to finish fifth at 13-under.
As an amateur, Woad could not collect the spoils of her Irish Open victory. Today, US$300,000 was a tidy way to catch up.
What she has achieved needs to sink in. Over the past 74 years, she is only the third woman to win an LPGA Tour event in her pro debut.
The links experience this week gives her a fine lead-up for what is to come…this week’s AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl in Wales.
This is only the start but this hot streak in July has certainly added another layer to handling the transition from amateur to professional, on top of the seven majors she has already played.
“I think just getting experience is great. I’d played a lot of majors and pro events before this. So it wasn’t all new, really. I think just the more experiences you give yourself, the better. I’m just looking to continue the momentum, really (at Royal Porthcawl),” Woad said.
