'I know what I need to do' - rising star Woad targets Open

BBC News

a day ago

Just a week after turning professional, Lottie Woad is favourite for the final major of the year - the AIG Women's Open at Royal Porthcawl.It is a startling rise for British golf's most exciting prospect. She arrived in Wales having been crowned Scottish Open champion on Sunday.This, in the same month she ended her amateur career by winning the Irish Open and finished third at the Evian Championship, the most recent women's major.The bookmakers have taken notice. Odds as stingy as 6-1 to win a golf tournament are usually reserved for the likes of Tiger Woods in his pomp and most recently Scottie Scheffler - not a rookie only days into her professional career. But the 21-year-old from Surrey is performing like a seasoned champion, demonstrating a golfing maturity way beyond her years.Can she win this week? "Yes, absolutely," former Women's Open champion and NBC commentator Karen Stupples told BBC Sport."I mean, she came 10th last year as an amateur and she almost won at Evian."The player herself seems unfazed by the attention she is generating but concedes her stunning start to life in the paid ranks has come as a bit of a surprise."I don't think you can predict that," she told BBC Sport. "I obviously was playing pretty well. But you can never expect to win an event, especially your first one."I was just looking to have a good experience that we could learn from and just try to play good golf, and that's how it happened. And then I guess I got the win."Woad, who played her first two rounds at Dundonald with world number one Nelly Korda and the current top Briton Charley Hull, added: "I think I've had so many experiences as an amateur playing in professional events."Playing with those players and being in the big groups, that didn't really feel too different."The next challenge is to maintain the momentum of this remarkable transition from world number one amateur to the most talked about current star in the professional game."I know what I need to do to perform well and there are always areas you need to tie up on and maintain," Woad said."So just having good prep and, I mean, knowing that you can't expect to play well all the time - especially on a tough course out here."Such perspective is another sign of Woad's maturity and is a striking element to her game."Lottie Woad is the most matter-of-fact golfer that I've ever really come across," Stupples said. "If you tell her she needs to make three birdies to win, she'll say: 'Oh, OK, I'll just make three birdies then.'"And if she does it, great; if she doesn't, it's not going to affect her one way or the other. It's as basic as that to her."She has intangibles that other players don't have," added the 2004 Women's Open winner."She's not afraid to look at her goals and say: 'OK, what do I have to do to achieve them?' And she accepts everything about achieving them."And that's where she differs from most people, because most players are a little scared of looking at a leaderboard. They're a little scared of what their reaction is going to be."She's not scared of that in any way, shape or form. And it's amazing."Which was precisely the word Korda used to describe the newcomer after playing the opening 36 holes with her on the Ayrshire coast last week. "Absolutely amazing," said the world number one."I was very impressed with her composure, her process. When it comes to her shot routine, especially under pressure and in the heat of the moment, sometimes people seem to fidget and kind of doubt themselves, but she stuck to it."She stuck to her process every single time, and I think that's one of the main things that I noticed is how mature she is for her age and how comfortable she was in the heat of the moment."You can see that she's put a tonne of hours in," Korda added. "Her putting is very solid, her game's solid, she hits it pretty far off the tee."Woad has been given another plumb draw this week, alongside the last two champions Lilia Vu and Lydia Ko, who triumphed at St Andrews last year after winning gold at the Paris Olympics.It is the stuff of golfing dreams for the English player. "I definitely love golf," she said."There's so many elements to it and you can practise so many things and improve in so many different ways. I just love practising and just love being very competitive."Woad listened on the car radio to the penalty shootout that brought more glory to England's Lionesses as she journeyed with her first professional trophy from Dundonald last Sunday night.Here now in Wales she might be on the threshold of prolonging the success story for English women's sport. The bookies certainly think so - and they are not alone.