Lottie Woad was doing Lottie Woad things when she arrived on the 16th hole in the second round of the AIG Women’s Open: six birdies in her last 10 holes, including three straight from holes 12-14. The last of those birds had moved Woad to five under for the tournament, into a tie for fourth and well within striking distance of the leaders. (At round’s end, Miyu Yamashita had the solo lead at 11 under.)
But the hottest player in the women’s game — Woad, as an amateur, last month won the Irish Open and tied for third at the Evian before turning professional and promptly winning the Scottish Open, all of which had helped make her the betting favourite at Royal Porthcawl this week — was about to cool off. Woad’s woes started after she found the fairway on 16. With her next swing, a 3-wood into a strong wind, she blocked her ball into a patch of brambles. A goner? It looked to be. That was until Woad’s playing partner, Lydia Ko, discovered the ball semi-submerged in the ground.
“A pretty unlucky lie,” Woad said later. “Wasn’t too thick around there apart from where I was. So couldn’t really do much with that.”
Woad believed the ball was embedded — i.e., plugged in its own pitch mark — which, under Rule 16.3, would have permitted her to lift, clean, and drop her ball within one club-length of the spot where it was embedded but not closer to the hole. Woad summoned a referee, who deemed the ball was actually not embedded.
Woad called for a second opinion. But that official ruled as the first had: play it as it lies.
Woad said she was disappointed in the ruling.
Making matters worse, her lie was so bad that her ball wasn’t playable. That forced Woad to take an unplayable and a back-on-the-line drop. From there, Woad needed four more shots to hole out, leading to a gut-punch triple-bogey 7 that dropped her back to two under.
Woad closed with a pair of pars and is nine off the lead through 36 holes.
“There was a lot more good in it than bad,” Woad said of her round. “Played really well for 17 holes, just that one hole cost me a bit.”
Of steadying herself after the turbulence at 16, Woad said, “I knew 18 was a good birdie chance. It was kind of just getting through 17, which is a tricky hole. I just had to forget about it as quickly as possible.”
Woad, who is in a nine-way tie for 10th, has much work to do if she is going to claim her first major win in her first major start as a professional. But whatever happens, she knows her week already has been a successful one.
“Playing four rounds is never a bad thing,” she said.
This article originated on Golf.com
