It’s officially Lottie Woad Summer on the LPGA.
The 21-year-old Englishwoman won the Scottish Open by three shots on Sunday, becoming the first person to win her initial LPGA event as a member since 2018. It comes on the heels of her Irish Open win as an amateur earlier this month and a tie for third-place at the Evian Championship. Those two results, on the Ladies European Tour and in the fourth major of the season, respectively, earned the 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur winner her LPGA card.
“You know, everyone was chasing me today, and managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch and hit a lot of good shots, which is nice,” Woad told reporters.
She is now a major contender for the AIG Women’s Open next week at Royal Porthcawl in Wales.
Woad came into Sunday’s final round at Dundonald Links with a two-shot lead and fired a pair of birdies on the front nine, but Hyo Joo Kim was 5 under through 11 holes to tie Woad at 19-under-par. Woad answered with birdies on holes Nos. 13 and 14, and watched as Kim bogeyed back-to-back holes to fall off the pace.
Woad finished her final-round 68 with a birdie on No. 18. She shot 67-65-67-68 over four days, playing almost flawless golf. She had at least five birdies in each of her rounds, and had three total bogeys (and no doubles) during the week.
“It might have looked less stressful than maybe it was at times, but I think I only had like three bogeys, which, I mean, the wind wasn’t too bad the first due days. But on links golf, it’s definitely about bogey avoidance. That was probably the key to winning,” Woad said.
She’s from Farnham in Surrey, and enrolled at Florida State in 2022. Her breakout came two years later, with the ANWA win, NCAA runner-up finish and a top-10/low amateur finish at the Women’s Open. Woad took home $300,000 for the win Sunday.
Jin Young Ko was the last LPGA pro to earn a win in her first start as a member. Rose Zhang won the 2023 Mizuho Americas Open in her first event after turning professional, but she did not yet have her tour card.
The Scottish Open was originally scheduled to be streaming only in the United States on NBC Sports, but the LPGA worked with NBC to get two hours of the final round broadcast on CNBC.
(Photo: Paul Devlin / Getty Images)
