IRVINE, Scotland — Lottie Woad tapped in a single closing birdie, plucked the ball out of the cup and gave a easy wave to the group as if she had carried out this earlier than. The English star made it look simple Sunday when she gained the Girls’s Scottish Open in her skilled debut.
Woad by no means flinched when Hyo Joo Kim made a cost on a windy day at Dundonald Hyperlinks, closing with a 4-under 68 for a three-shot victory.
Woad is the second participant in three years to win on the LPGA Tour in her professional debut, following Rose Zhang within the Mizuho Americas Open at Liberty Nationwide in 2023.
Woad completed at 21-year 267 and earned $300,000.
“I believe it is fairly exhausting to do this, however very particular to win in my first occasion,” Woad mentioned. “Everybody was chasing me at the moment, and managed to take care of the lead and performed actually properly down the stretch and hit a number of good pictures.”
Kim had opened with 4 birdies in seven holes, and when the South Korean added birdies on the eleventh and twelfth, she shared the lead with Woad.
Woad was unflappable, making birdie on the thirteenth and 14th holes to regain management and dropping just one shot late in her spherical. She completed with a three-quarter wedge over a winding burn to 2 ft for birdie and a reserved celebration.
Her victory is for certain to get everybody’s consideration in girls’s golf. Woad was the No. 1 novice within the girls’s rating when she gained the Girls’s Irish Open on the Girls European Tour three weeks in the past. Then, she completed one shot out of a playoff within the Evian Championship in France, an LPGA main.
That gave her sufficient factors for an LPGA card, so the 21-year-old determined to forgo her closing 12 months at Florida State and switch professional. Now she has an LPGA title — the Girls’s Scottish Open is co-sanctioned with the LET — as she heads south for Royal Porthcawl in Wales for the ultimate main of the 12 months within the Girls’s Open.
Nelly Korda, who performed the opening three rounds with Woad, ran off 4 straight birdies on the entrance 9 till lacking some putts that stalled her momentum. She shot 71 and completed eight pictures behind, leaving the American winless this 12 months after a seven-win season in 2024.
Julia Lopez Ramirez closed with a 65 and tied for third with Sei Young Kim (73), incomes the Spaniard one among three spots accessible within the Girls’s British Open subsequent week. The opposite spots went to Paula Reto of South Africa and Mary Liu of China.
Woad first made a reputation for herself when she gained the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Beginner final 12 months with birdies on three of the final 4 holes. She mentioned that was extra strain than she felt in her professional debut.
“I believe Augusta, that was the most important match I performed in on the time and was form of my huge win,” Woad mentioned. “So positively felt the strain of it extra there, and I felt like all these experiences helped me with this.”
The one distinction this week was getting paid for it. Together with successful the Girls’s Irish Open, Woad tied for thirty first within the U.S. Girls’s Open this 12 months and tied for tenth within the Girls’s British Open at St. Andrews final summer season.
She heads to Wales hopeful of retaining the momentum.
“It has been fairly good, yeah. I do not actually know the way to describe it,” Woad mentioned. “Simply been capturing low scores, which is at all times good.”
The LPGA Tour now has had a special winner in all 19 tournaments this 12 months, the longest stretch of no a number of winners in its 75-year historical past.