Lottie Woad could be the LPGA's lottery

In her first professional major, she's the favorite this week.

Don’t cut that cord just yet.

Craig Kessler is the new commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golf Association, and last weekend he saw a bright light held under a bushel. In this case, Lottie Woad 21, was in the process of winning the Scottish Open, the first pro tournament of her career, and yet you needed NBC’s streaming app to see it live. Otherwise you had to wait until Sunday afternoon to see Golf Channel’s replay.

That might be the wave of the future, since you can’t even use a parking lot these days without QR codes, apps and other magic beans that have captured our phones and most of our minds. But Kessler recognized there still was a big ol’ cable-watching world out there. He huddled with NBC and got the final two hours of the tournament on CNBC. It’s hard to tell how many people were aware of this, but Kessler didn’t like the fact that Woad’s revolution was not being televised.

“For so many people it’s easy to know when to turn on the TV, or click on the app, and see the players you want to see at predictable times,” Kessler said. “It’s really, really hard to know women’s golf. We were keeping a close eye on the way the tournament was shaping up.”

Woad shaped it up nicely. She shot 21-under-par to win by three strokes, including three birdies down the stretch after she had lost the lead. She made only three bogeys all week.

You didn’t need the Weather Channel to see her approaching. In three July tournaments, Woad’s scoring average is 67.3 and she’s 55 strokes under par. But the Scottish Open’s check was the first one she could cash. Woad, who played for Florida State, was an amateur when she won the Irish Open, a Ladies European Tour event, and then finished third in the Evian, an LPGA major. In that one she was just one shot out of the playoff. The Evian finish might not have greased her palms, but it allowed Woad to get LPGA Tour status through the LEAP program that buzzes the amateurs who obviously need a new league.

She finally deposited the $300,000 from Scotland, and some of that will go to a new car, since she hasn’t picked up her license yet. She didn’t have her own ride at Florida State and would call Uber to get her to the practice range at 7:30 a.m. On a questionnaire, she came to a question about her favorite class at FSU. “Golf,” she wrote.

This week she tees it up at the Women’s British Open at Royal Porthcawl in Wales. And she’s already the favorite. Not even Tiger Woods was given that distinction at his first pro major, although he won the 1997 Masters by 12 strokes anyway.

“I was very impressed by her composure,” said Nelly Korda, who was golf’s “It Girl” just the other day.. “When it comes to her routine, in the heat of the moment, sometimes people tend to fidget and doubt themselves. But she stuck to what she was doing every single time. One of the main things I noticed was how comfortable she was in the heat of the moment.”

Woad won five tournaments at FSU and had 27 Top Ten finishes. She introduced herself to the mainstream at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, which is held the week before the Masters and bears the game’s most unmistakable brand. Woad had the third-round lead in 2024 but had to deal with USC’s Bailey Shoemaker, who shot a tournament-record 66 a few holes ahead. Down two with five holes left, Woad saved par on 14 after her drive hit a tree, then birdied three of the final four to win.

A few months later she was on the Great Britain and Ireland team that won the Curtis Cup over the U.S., and she finished 10th in the British Open and 24th in the Chevron, the first time she’d played in an LPGA major.

None of this is accidental. Woad takes extensive notes on every practice session, including the exact yardage of all her wedge shots. She was known to practice in the snow back in her hometown of Farnham, just southwest of London, where she was coached by Luke Bone when she was eight. Bone is still coaching her, and caddying for her this week in Wales. He is best-known for teaming with Luke Willett to win the British Speedgolf championships, in which they shot a 83, playing the same ball, while hoofing it through 18 holes in 43 minutes and 49 seconds at a course called Brocket Hall.

When stationary, Bone teaches golf, not golf swing. He likes to say he works “backwards from the ball flight” and that “the ball does what it is told. It has no idea that you have a left arm, much less that it was straight or not.” He doesn’t get lost in the positional absolutes of the swing, although Woad’s endless practices take care of that. “I want the player to solve problems,” he said, “not give them positions to hit.” He also has said that Woad made him realize that the key is discipline and process, figuring it out, rather than being true to the diagrams.

She played soccer for a while in the Southampton program, which certainly helps the stamina, and when Covid-19 arrived in 2020, her parents Nick and Rachel built her a practice green at their home.

You might be wondering about the unsteady state of women’s golf if such an ingenue can become a major favorite so quickly, and if there will be any sort of ridiculous backlash this week if Woad doesn’t make the cut.

Lydia Ko was 15 when she won an LPGA event and 17 when she was ranked No. 1 in the world. Now she is 28, with three majors, 31 pro wins, a Hall of Fame plaque and an Olympic gold medal. There could have been trauma and even disaster in that journey, but she’s fine, and she’s the defending champ at the Open.

Ko is also one of Woad’s playing partners in the first two rounds, beginning Thursday. Holton Freeman, her coach, sent her a video this week. It was Woad, and Freeman wanted Ko to pay attention to Woad’s hand position on the downswing. Rather than scoffing at the idea of a rookie educating a legend, Ko was eager to see it. She said she’s looking forward to “picking her brain a little bit.” Will we get to see if something, or someone, can get inside Woad’s head? If Craig Kessler has anything to do with it, we will.