Lottie Woad did Lottie Woad Things when she arrived on the 16th hole in the second round of the Aig Women’s: Six Birdies in her last 10 holes, including three directly from holes 12-14. The last of those birds had moved Woad to five for the tournament, in a draw for the fourth and more than at a striking distance from the leaders. (At the end of Round, Miyu Yamashita had the solo lead on 11 below.)
But the most popular player in the women’s game – Woad, as an amateur, won the Irish open last month and tied the third with the Evian before he became Pro and the Scottish Open immediately won, who had helped her to make her the gambling favorite at Royal Porthcawl this week – was about to cool down. Woad’s misery started after she found the fairway on 16. With her next swing, a 3-wood in a strong wind, she blocked her ball in a piece of brambles. A goner? It seemed to be. That was until the play partner of Woad, Lydia Ko, discovered the ball semi-perfect in the ground.
“A pretty unfortunate lie,” Woad said later. “Wasn’t too fat there, except where I was. So it couldn’t really do much with that.”
Woad believed that the ball was embedded – ie, his own pitch marked – which, under Rule 16.3Would have allowed her to lift her ball, clean and drop within one club length of the place where it was embedded but not closer to the hole. Woad called on a referee, who considered the ball, was not actually embedded.
Woad called for a second opinion. But that official ruled when the first had: play it as it is.
Woad said she was disappointed in the pronunciation.
Even worse, her lie was so bad that her ball was not playable. That forced Woad to take an unspeakable and a back-on-line drop. From there, WOAD needed more four shots to go out, which led to a gut-punch triple-bogey 7 that dropped her back to two under the bottom.
Woad closed with a few pars and is nine of the leadership by 36 holes.
“There was much more good than bad,” Woad said about her round. “Plays really good for 17 holes, only that one hole cost me a bit.”
To stabilize itself after the turbulence at the age of 16, Woad said: “I knew 18 was a good chance. It was a bit through 17, which is a tricky hole. I just had to forget it as quickly as possible.”
Woad, who is in nine roads for 10th, has a lot of work to do if she is going to claim her first big win in her first big start as a professional. But whatever happens, she knows that her week has already been a successful.
“Playing four rounds is never a bad thing,” she said.
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