There is no question at all who the in-form player in the game of golf is right now, with Lottie Woad winning on two of her last three starts and finishing no worse than third in that time.
There are going to be plenty of people tipping Lottie Woad to win her first major title this week at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl.
Woad won the KPMG Women’s Irish Open by six shots while still an amateur earlier this month. The 21-year-old followed that by finishing third at the Evian Championship in the penultimate major of the year. There were just three rounds all week which were better than her 64 on Sunday in France.
She turned professional ahead of the Women’s Scottish Open at Dundonald Links. And she celebrated the landmark by winning the event by three.
What Lottie Woad is doing which is potentially unprecedented in golf
It is an ominous sign for her rivals ahead of The Women’s Open this week in Wales. But perhaps there is reason to think that this run of dominance is likely to last considerably longer.
Speaking on 5 Clubs, commentator Grant Boone noted that while players have achieved similar, he cannot think of another player – male or female – who has reeled off all of the same accomplishments as Woad.
“It’s not that there aren’t comparisons, there are. I think you could look to my colleague Morgan Pressel and see someone who at a very young age was doing great things, and you just got the sense that they wanted to beat you. Nothing personal, but they expected to win at a young age. Like Morgan at the US Open in 2005, Lottie Woad darn near won a major championship. Had the lead late just a couple of weeks ago at the Amundi Evian Championship, and it took a great finish by Jeeno Thitikul and Grace Kim to keep her out of a playoff,” he said.
“She expects to win. She is winning. And I think when you look at what she’s done, it’s not that there’s never been an amateur who’s won a professional event. That’s happened a lot of times. As we know, she’s not the first player to ever win her professional debut. Just two years ago, Rose Zhang turned 20 and then turned pro and then won the Mizuho Americas Open and won another LPGA event since and made a couple of Solheim Cup teams.
“She’s the third to win her pro debut. Put it this way, we were scouring the record books to even look up the last time, when Rose Zhang did it, someone who won their professional debut, that’s not even something you think about in golf. Rose did it, and now Lottie has done it.
“So it’s not as if she’s done things that have never been done before individually. But when you consider the best transitions from amateur to pro, I don’t know that we’ve ever seen this in women’s golf or men’s golf. Someone win a professional event – by the way, that was a very strong LET field, more Rolex points in that field at the Irish Women’s Open than average, she had Madelene Sagstrom, Charley Hull, Leona Maguire in the field. So she wins that event as an amateur by six by the way, and then she goes and leads late at a major, and then she wins her pro debut. I don’t think we’ve ever seen it.”
How Lottie Woad performed on her AIG Women’s Open debut last year
What will potentially worry those hoping to stop Woad winning a third title in four events this week is what she did in The Women’s Open one year ago.
She was the low amateur for the week after finishing in a tie for 10th. Incredibly, Woad’s best round of the week was only one shot worse than Lydia Ko‘s. Meanwhile, her worst round at St Andrews was only two shots off Ko’s poorest.
Woad had missed the cut at her two previous major appearances. But that week at the Old Course saw the first of what will surely be many top 10s in the majors for the starlet.
Royal Porthcawl will provide a different test. But Woad has shown in recent weeks that she has the game to clear most of the hurdles which can be put in front of her.
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