she was on the cusp of winning the Meijer LPGA Classic<\/a> on Sunday. Woad needed to make a putt of about two feet on the 18th hole to win her third LPGA Tour title, and she missed. The putt lipped out. Miyu Yamashita then won the tournament on the first playoff hole, leaving Woad in disbelief.<\/p>\nOn Tuesday, the 22-year-old found a crazy thought to try to put the mess behind her.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, last week kind of sucked,\u201d Woad said in a news conference from Hazeltine National Golf Club, where the Women\u2019s PGA begins on Thursday. \u201cJust trying to remind myself that I’m still 22 and I’ve won twice already. If you told me that coming out of college [last] year, I would’ve bit your hand off for it. Just trying to use that perspective as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a major follow that kind of collapse could be a good thing. Woad doesn\u2019t have time to wallow. Or pull a Mike Tyson-like bite of a human appendage. There\u2019s plenty of work to shift to in assessing a course like Hazeltine and trying to win her first major. Woad wasn\u2019t even in college when the Women\u2019s PGA was played for the first time at Hazeltine in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe golf course is amazing. Never been here before. Definitely going to be a test of all aspects of your game, which most major championships are,\u201d Woad said. \u201cRough is pretty thick out there, so definitely want to hit it straight and try and hit as many greens as possible really. Feeling really good about my game the last few weeks and looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woad starred at Florida State, rose to be the No.1-ranked amateur in the world, and graduated to the LPGA Tour via the LEAP (LPGA Elite Amateur Pathway) program almost one year ago. She made her debut at the ISPS Handa Women\u2019s Scottish Open and won, becoming the first LPGA player to do that since Rose Zhang in 2023.<\/p>\n
Now the world\u2019s eighth-ranked player, Woad has proven to be resilient before. She has a terrific track record in majors, where she\u2019s made five consecutive cuts. She had a chance to win the Amundi Evian Championship, where she finished tied for third as an amateur. She turned pro and won, then finished tied for eighth in the AIG Women\u2019s Open.<\/p>\n
While she\u2019s played extremely well as a professional, Woad has had difficult moments. She\u2019s also proven to be resilient before, and she\u2019s hoping to do it again.<\/p>\n
Woad missed the cut at the Mizuho America\u2019s Open, where she shot a first-round 80. The next event she played in\u2014the Kroger Queen City Championship\u2014she won. That was last month. She has five top-10s this year and already has $1.9 million in career earnings and plenty of good golf to draw on as she tries to flush that missed putt. Woad seems to have the capacity to flush a bad moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have to in golf, really. Like you’re going to lose way more times than you win out here,\u201d Woad said. \u201cEvery week is another tournament, so you’re lucky with that. It doesn’t matter what you did last week. Doesn’t affect where you start on the leaderboard, obviously. Basically, as soon as I got here early Monday morning, I was switched on to this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now comes another test. Sure, it\u2019s a major, but can Woad put a devastating missed opportunity in her rear-view mirror and continue her fine play in majors?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s definitely easier when you’re playing well and you’re not looking for something on the range,\u201d Woad said. \u201cAt the same time, golf is a funny game. You can be playing well one week and not be playing well the next week. Definitely still preparing for it the same as I would any other event. I’ve got my swing coach here this week as well and just doing some work on the range. Trying to get prep as good as possible, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that includes work off the range, like leaving her putting debacle behind her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lottie Woad is about to play in the KPMG Women\u2019s PGA Championship for the first time, but this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9333,7912,10414,531,82,4313],"class_list":["post-26308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pga-championship","tag-kpmg-womens-pga-championship","tag-lottie-woad","tag-lottie-woad-womens-pga","tag-pga-championship","tag-story","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}