Farnham-born Woad, the pre-tournament favourite, shot a level-par 72 in her opening round but had charged into the top five with three holes of her second round to play.
After five straight pars to start, Woad made six birdies and one bogey across the next 10 holes.
Then, all of her positive momentum was halted on the par-four 16th:
Shot one – drives on to the fairway
Shot two – sends approach right of green into thick rough
Shot three – attempts to pitch out but ball remains in similar spot
Shot four – takes penalty drop
Shot five – pitches on to green
Shot six – 30-foot putt comes to rest close to hole
Shot seven – finds hole
After that setback, which was the only major blemish in an otherwise exceptional round, Woad made two solid pars to finish.
“I think it’s probably the toughest hole on the course,” she said afterwards.
“The tee shot is hard to hit the fairway and then you’ve got a three-wood into a very strong wind. Anything that’s missing the target is going to be exaggerated.
“So I pushed it and got a pretty unlucky lie. It wasn’t too thick around there apart from where I was, so I couldn’t really do much with that.”
Asked about her second round as a whole after a tough opening day, she added: “I’d certainly take it [two under par] now, but not when I was standing on the 16th tee.
“I’ve just got to try to play well over the weekend. The leaderboard is pretty packed so I can move up a bit.”
