The victory of Lottie Woad lets everyone talk. It has Lydia Ko ready to ask questions

The victory of Lottie Woad was the golf world’s conversation last weekend. The top amateur became Pro and won the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open with three shots to join Beverly Hanson and Rose Zhang as the only players win in their pro debut.

The victory of Woad, together with her T3 on the Amundi Evian Championship and wins on the KPMG Women’s Irish open as an amateur, is impressed by everyone from Nelly Korda to Justin Rose. The rise of 21-year-old Woad should be a blessing for ladies’ wave, because it seems to reclaim the momentum that it had last year during the historic part of Korda and Lydia Ko’s Wervelwind Zomerrun to the LPGA Hall of Fame.

But this week is about the present. About what is possible.

This week Woad will arrive at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl, the last major championship of the year, as a favorite at Goken, with Korda, Jeeno Thitul, defender Lydia Ko and others all follow the 21-year-old fenoom on the ODDS magazine.

The spotlights were on Woad on Dundonald on the left last week. It will be even clearer in Wales this week. Everyone buzzes the rise of WOAD. But Ko, who plays the first two rounds at Royal Porthcawl with Woad and Lilia VU, plans to use her time with the emerging star to improve her own game. Ko has not spent time around Woad, but she has seen her, and that is enough to know that there are things to learn from the young English woman. After all, in Golf, age is really a song.

“It will be my first time that I play with Lottie, so I am excited,” Ko said on Tuesday at Royal Porthcawl. “She comes in with a lot of sailing, and I think there will be many people who will come out and look at her. It will be very cool to me to see and see the things that I may learn from her and why she plays well.

“She is clearly playing great wave. I have seen her and my coach also sent me a video of her swing because there are aspects that I have a bit for that she has. Yes, it will be really cool to just be in the ropes, to pick her brain a little.”

Ko knows that the pressure woad more than most faces.

Of course Ko was much younger than woad now was when she went under the microscope.

Ko’s first LPGA victory came at the age of 15 when she won the CN Canadian Women’s Open 2012. She had already won a Ladies European Tour event at 14. Ko won four professional titles as an amateur and held the number 1 amateur ranking for 130 weeks before she turned 16. She became Pro in many fanfare and hype; All those years later she marched to the LPGA Hall of Fame.

Woad is 21 and spent three years in the lead role at Florida State University. Her experience will be different from KO’s. Her time spent at the university has already given her the tools that are needed to immediately succeed in the professional pressure cooker.

“I think it is different in ways, because Lottie is older than when I first came on tour,” said Ko. “She played collegial golf for three years. She has been in a large part of that kind of more difficult moments. It is clearly different from being an amateur and collegial golf to be a professional, but I think she has been there and really done well in those pressure conditions, regardless of what kind of environment she is. So I think there is a little more experience among her belt.

“But when I have seen the coverage or how she puts together, she does not seem that she enters things or becomes overly emotional. I am sure that will help her with that transition.”

WOAD seems to be easy to handle the transition so far.

During her last three professional starts, she is 55 under par with a score average of 67.4. Her results? Win, T3, Win.

This week will be different. Woad has previously participated in Majors, but never as GOK’s favorite. Nevertheless, she has had to deal with high expectations in the last 15 months, since her impressive victory over the Augusta National Women’s Amateur 2024. She announced herself there on Golf’s holy terrain and the expectation of her arrival on the LPGA stage has been slowly built since then. She has treated all of that flawlessly, with blinkers to block the sound and hold on to her process.

Things have not changed for her. She just plays golf and wants to beat the world’s best on a stage that fits her talent.

“I mean, there is always busy, but I don’t think there was more than there was,” said Woad Tuesday. “Like from my perspective, before one of the last few weeks, there still wanted to fight, and that is still the goal.”

On Thursday she starts her walk around the famous tires east of Swansea and west of Cardiff. She will answer questions from Ko and maybe also say something. And then she will try to add a large championship to her growing young CV, trusting in a balance and processing of that gelage of her age.

Ko won her first major at the age of 18. Maybe they each have something to learn from the other.