AUGUSTA, Ga. – What we remember in defeat here are the calamitous moments, the shots that are too bold and others too timid, the splashes and the trickles and the flubs.
But Augusta National doesn’t just test a player’s power and touch and discipline. It’s also a measure of stone-cold precision.
So it was that Lottie Woad stood in the middle of the 10th fairway, eying up her approach into the downhill green as she tried to chase down another Augusta National Women’s Amateur title.
The 21-year-old Englishwoman has enjoyed a banner season, and it all began here a year ago. Though she was ranked No. 4 in the world, Woad lacked a significant title against the game’s best at this level. That changed that magical day last April when she survived a few early stumbles to birdie three of the last four holes and win arguably the most prestigious women’s amateur event in the world.
Woad’s life changed that day – more obligations, expectation, recognizability. But so, too, did her career. An ascension to world No. 1. Major starts. A victorious Curtis Cup appearance. And during her day job in college golf, with the latest class off to the pros, she was the new targeted player to beat. All she’s done since is finish inside the top 3 in every event she’s played for Florida State.
“This week is definitely different to last year,” Woad said earlier this week in Augusta, “coming in with bigger expectations and stuff like that. But I’d be very proud of how I dealt with that if I could manage to win it.”
As she learned last year in victory, Woad’s opening round at Champions Retreat could set the tone for the week. She recorded an opening 65 to sit two shots back, then played solidly enough in Round 2 to grab a share of the 36-hole lead and earn her way back into the final group.
An opening birdie Saturday helped give her a two-shot cushion, but it was clear from the outset she wasn’t completely dialed. She bricked a short birdie putt on the second. She missed the green on the par-3 sixth and made bogey. And as she stepped into her shot on 10, she hadn’t just been caught but passed by Spaniard Carla Bernat Escuder, a senior transfer at Kansas State who has enjoyed college success but lacked any big-game bona fides.
On 10, Woad was between clubs, a 5- and 6-iron, and opted for more club into the wind to get all the way to the back hole location. That turned out to be a mistake. Taking a lower-lofted club off the downslope, her approach came in too flat, landing pin-high and without backspin, hopping over the back, rolling down the steep slope and coming to rest in a bush.
“I put a good swing on it, it was just the wrong club,” said Woad, who had her English team coach, Steve Robinson, on the bag. “Then got in an unfortunate position, so probably was always going to make 6 from there.”
The double bogey dropped her three shots back and in a need of a second-nine scramble.
Of course, Woad knew from own experience it was possible – her final flourish last year included birdies on 15, 17 and 18 – and the leaderboard told a similar story, with four scores in the 60s already posted.
“At that point there was nothing to lose,” she said. “Just said, ‘Let’s make some birdies,’ and that was really it.”
Sure enough, Woad began to mount a comeback. She lipped out an eagle chip on 13 and then stuffed her approach into 14 to pull within two shots of Bernat Escuder, but her final hour proved to be anticlimactic. Woad failed to get up-and-down from the bunker on 15 and settled for par, then one-armed her tee shot on 16 and made bogey to, officially, end her chances, much to the dismay of her cheering squad of coaches and Florida State teammates who followed along with every shot.
“I’m pretty frustrated,” Woad said afterward. “Played decent tee to green, just didn’t hole really any putts, and that’s what it came down to in the end.”
And there it was again, those margins, the thin lines between success and failure that, somehow, seem even thinner at Augusta. There were countless examples late. The bunker shot on 15 that repelled away from the flag instead of climbing the ridge. The shot from the sand on 16 that somehow stayed on the top shelf. The approach on 17 that was inches away from catching the slope and funneling toward the hole.
It added up to a final-round 72, a solo-third finish and a disappointing slog up the hill to the patrons waiting around the 18th green.
“I think you learn every time you’re in contention – it’s just putting yourself in those positions, really,” she said. “You can’t win every time. The goal coming into it was just to be in contention. So got that, and, yeah, it was a pretty good defense in the end.”
It just ended a few holes earlier than expected.
