Lottie Woad

Lottie Woad’s legend continued to grow on Sunday at the Carton House Golf Club in Kildare, Ireland.

The world’s No. 1 amateur has already held many honors under her leadership, including the 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Lower Amateur Honors at the AIG Women’s Open and the US Women’s Open. She won five championships in Florida, just finished a junior season, and her game wasn’t much worse until the T-8 of the NCAA Individual Championship.

WOAD fled the strong professional course of the European Tour KPMG Women’s Ireland Women’s Open Golf Championship on Sunday, shooting 49 under par on Sunday, completing the game under the age of 21, six leads over runner-up Madeline Sagstrom.

“Getting a win means a lot,” Ward said. “Obviously, I have a big lead today, but since I’m being chased by some really good players, I still have to really focus. I’m happy to finish it. It’s perfect. I feel like I’m doing well and I hope to keep going to Evian next week.”

The field also includes LPGA Pros Charley Hull, who finished fourth, Leona Maguire and Georgia Hall.

With the victory, WOAD became the first amateur race to win the Let event since Jana Melichova won the 2022 TIPSPORT Czech Ladies Open. Lydia Ko won an amateur event in 2013 when she canceled the trophy at the 15-year-old New Zealand Women’s Open.

WOAD started his seventh shooting before Sagstrom on Sunday. The amateurs opened with birdies in 2nd and 4th and then shot on the fifth shot. But Ward Birds ranked eighth and 13th. The 15th bogey (just one-third of her week) was quickly erased by back-to-back birds at 16 and 17, giving the final victory the latest win, which is just the latest sign that WOAD is approaching LPGA.

Although the 21-year-old won no jump points in his victory in Ireland, she is almost guaranteed to get the remaining two points needed to win the LPGA travel card by August. WOAD hits 18 points and will have a chance to win points in the Amundi Evian Championship and the AIG Women’s Open next week. The players took a leap in a Grand Slam cut, while the two finished in the top 25. If WOAD doesn’t earn any points in the last two majors of the year, she will get four points when she wins the McCormack medal in August to become the world’s best amateur.

Despite her victory, WOAD once said she would be an amateur until she scored 20 points. Once you get 20 points on the card, you can be a member this season and next season and give up her senior season at Florida State, or she can postpone the membership for a year and play next season’s LPGA Tour.

“No, I don’t want to make a professional yet,” Ward said on Sunday. “I’m still working on the final two points for the LPGA. I’m trying to get those points and then we’ll see what’s going on after that.”

What happened after that was that Lottie Woad, the highest-ranked amateur and budding superstar, would arrive at the stage where she seemed destined to thrive, and all signs showed that her legend was only once she did.