Editor’s note: “In Case You Missed It” is a GGP+ feature that highlights a story from Global Golf Post‘s Monday magazine.
GAILES, SCOTLAND | Finally, Lottie Woad was able to put the winner’s spoils in her pocket. In what was her first outing as a professional, the 21-year-old Englishwoman finished at 21-under par to capture the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links, defeating Hyo Joo Kim by three strokes and earning $300,000. Kim, a six-time LPGA winner, was briefly in with a chance coming down the stretch, only for the novice professional, if we can call Woad that, to hit back with three back-nine birdies.
Kim, who does not speak much English, raised a thumb when asked how impressed she was at Woad’s performance. Then, when someone reminded her that it was the player’s first professional sortie, she raised a second thumb.
By now, the latest phenom on the golfing scene will have arrived at Royal Porthcawl for the AIG Women’s Open, where she will be vying with none other than Lydia Ko, winner of last year’s Open at St Andrews. The excitement is as compelling in America as it is over here and when, on Saturday, Lottie was two ahead going into the final round, CNBC made up for the lack of live TV coverage scheduled in the States by timing a two-hour programme to match the leaders’ closing holes.
Yet at the start of Scottish Open week, not too many were thinking that Woad would win from a field that included the world No. 1 Nelly Korda. Yes, she had just rounded off her amateur career with a spectacular six-stroke victory in the KPMG Women’s Irish Open on the Ladies European Tour and a share of third place in the co-sanctioned fifth major, the Amundi Evian Championship, but far from making an intrepid entry onto her new stage, she could not have looked more wary when she appeared for her first press conference.
Her life was changing in front of the media’s very eyes. The embroidered England Golf badge had disappeared from the front of the navy sweater that had meant so much throughout her amateur career; she was shortly to tee up alongside Charley Hull and Korda, and she knew that everyone had high expectations for her.
Come 8:30 on Thursday morning, we were seeing Lottie in more comfortable surrounds – the first tee.
So big was the crowd that you half expected to find Rory McIlroy wielding his driver. Instead, Korda, all elegance, was about to dispatch her tee shot. Lottie came next, and then there was Hull, who was still not feeling 100 percent after her collapse at the Evian. Lottie let rip with the best drive of the trio and started par-birdie to Korda’s bogey-birdie and Hull’s par-bogey. She ended up with a 5-under-par 67, which left her in a share of second place, one behind England’s Charlotte Laffar.
Where other “new girls” might have felt duty-bound to keep well out of the way of such famous playing companions, she had the guts to do everything at her preferred pace.
Lottie’s approach shots apart – they were reminding people of Scottie Scheffler’s in the way they would hit and stick the greens – there was nothing more surprising about her opening round than the way she stuck with her usual routine on the greens. Where other “new girls” might have felt duty-bound to keep well out of the way of such famous playing companions, she had the guts to do everything at her preferred pace.
She would start by looking at her putts from one angle and then another from the moment she arrived on the green. Then, when it was her turn, she would have a series of practice strokes before pinning her ball marker back on her hat and returning to the practice strokes. Finally, she would send the ball heading for the hole. (The referees noted that she had picked up speed on the greens since she won in Ireland.)
Colin Montgomerie, who was keeping an eye on her performance from the Senior Open Championship at Sunningdale, had been an admirer of her putting since last year’s Curtis Cup. “She has what I call a proper putting stroke,” he said. “Usually, when she’s over the ball, you know she is going to hole out – and she knows.”
For another of Montgomerie’s vintage, it is worth going back to Mark Roe’s reaction when he captured the significance of Lottie’s win in last year’s Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
Roe – the Sky commentator who was in contention through 54 holes at the 2003 Open at Royal St George’s when he and Jesper Parnevik were disqualified after it was discovered they had failed to exchange scorecards – had jumped from his seat and, in a manner to suggest he was addressing Lottie herself, he had burst forth on TV with a feeling, “You’ve got no right at 20 years of age to be so calm in that situation. … You’re being watched around the world with a crowd of Masters patrons yelling from around the 18th green and still you managed to hang in there.”
While keeping tabs on her fourth round at Dundonald, Roe explained that the reason he had been so shocked last year was because he had seen something “of what lay inside” the player at Augusta. “I hadn’t expected her to have the necessary level of composure she needed to finish with a couple of birdies and overtake Bailey Shoemaker,” he said. “She wasn’t on my radar before that day but I’ve watched her ever since.”
Roe, who specialises in short-game tuition, thought she might have a battle on her hands Sunday but backed her to win on the grounds that she would be able to draw on her Augusta experience and her “never-say-die” approach.
As one who collected first-team academic All-American honours in her third year at Florida State, you can only imagine that the university will make things easy for Lottie should she want to complete her final year alongside her on-tour LPGA trips. In fact, it came as no surprise to hear her say that she has already chosen to base herself with her university flat-mates – all of them golfers and football lovers like herself – as soon as she returns to the United States.
“We all talked about being beaten by the world No. 1 amateur, but that’s how good she is. The best thing about the result was that the professionals’ pay cheques went up!” – Amelia Garvey
Asked if she would be using her prize money to buy a car for her tournament travels, she explained that a car wouldn’t be much use to her at this point in that she doesn’t have a U.S. licence. Paying for flights would be more like it.
She knew that everyone had been chasing her yesterday and, because of it, she did not look at the leaderboard until she was playing the 17th. That was the right time. She was back to two ahead and finishing off with a birdie made her day.
All of her sister players at Dundonald were blown away by the new kid on the block, their number including Amelia Garvey, who had finished in third place behind her in Ireland. “We all talked about being beaten by the world No. 1 amateur,” Garvey said, “but that’s how good she is. The best thing about the result was that the professionals’ pay cheques went up!”
That’s not going to happen again. Last year, Ko earned $1,425,000 for winning the AIG Women’s Open and we await the news of what the first prize will be this week and, of course, who will be its recipient.
Could Lottie come out on top again?