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AUGUSTA, Ga. — Bob Shoemaker stood underneath a tree close to the Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership clubhouse on Saturday shortly after his daughter, Bailey, made a clutch 5-foot par putt on the 18th gap to keep up a 1-stroke lead within the Augusta Nationwide Ladies’s Newbie.
Shoemaker put a plastic Snoopy golf membership in Bailey’s arms when she was one-and-a-half years outdated, and now the USC freshman was on the verge of probably profitable the premier occasion in girls’s novice golf.
After Shoemaker carded a bogey-free 6-under 66, the bottom ultimate spherical within the five-year historical past of the ANWA, there was just one participant left on the course inside placing distance — England’s Lottie Woad.
“She’s obtained this,” Hari Ganne, the daddy of Stanford golfer Megha Ganne, informed Bob Shoemaker.
“I do not know,” Shoemaker mentioned. “Woad is absolutely good. She might make three birdies in a row and we’re performed.”
Shoemaker’s warning was prophetic.
Woad, a sophomore at Florida State, carded birdies on three of the final 4 holes to publish a 3-under 69 within the ultimate spherical, sufficient to seize the fifth Augusta Nationwide Ladies’s Newbie. Her 54-hole whole of 8-under 208 was 1 higher than Shoemaker, who began the ultimate spherical 4 strokes behind Woad.
LSU’s Ingrid Lindblad of Sweden completed third at 4-under 212, her third top-three end within the occasion.
Woad fell 2 strokes behind Shoemaker after making a bogey on the par-5 thirteenth gap. She wanted a pleasant par save after her tee shot on the 14th gap hit a tree and she or he hit her method shot lengthy. She was in a position to rise up and down from behind the inexperienced.
“I felt just like the three birdies I obtained had been most likely not as vital as my par save on 14 as a result of I believe if I might gone three again at that time, it could have been fairly tough to get that again,” Woad mentioned. “So an excellent save there after having like 215 [yards] in as a result of I hit the tree.
She picked up a birdie on the par-5 fifteenth after which made par on the sixteenth.
After making an 8-foot birdie putt on the par-4 seventeenth to tie Shoemaker at 7 underneath, Woad bombed her drive on No. 18 down the fitting aspect. Woad took an aggressive line on her method shot, and her ball settled about 15 toes left of the opening. She buckled her knees and pumped her fist after her downhill, left-to-right putt fell into the opening.
“I used to be truthfully simply fascinated with making birdie fairly than par,” Woad mentioned. “I knew I wanted par for the playoff, however the pin was such a pleasant pin that I knew I might use that backstop a bit bit. I am undecided the shot used it in the long run.
“Then that putt, I really feel prefer it was most likely going previous, however I used to be simply being positive I did not three-putt it both with it being so fast. It was a little bit of a double-breaker, and by chance it broke again proper on the finish.”
Arnold Palmer (1960) and Mark O’Meara (1998) are the one Masters champions who had birdies on the final two holes and gained by 1.
Shoemaker needed to wait about 40 minutes for Woad to complete. She killed a while on the follow vary in case of a playoff, then watched Woad’s profitable putt from the clubhouse.
“Good for her, particularly underneath strain,” Shoemaker mentioned. “Realizing she needed to do it, that is wonderful. That is superior. I believe tremendous clutch. I am clearly dissatisfied, however on the finish of the day, I performed about pretty much as good as I might have. Perhaps a few putts might have dropped. However I made nearly all the things too. It’s what it’s.”
Woad, from Farnham, England, was making her second look at Augusta Nationwide. Final yr, she additionally superior to the ultimate spherical and completed thirteenth in her debut. Ranked the No. 4 girls’s novice on the planet, Woad was named a freshman All-American at FSU final yr and she or he has already gained the Annika Intercollegiate this season. In 2022, she captured the R&A Ladies’ Newbie at Carnoustie in Scotland.
Woad, 20, mentioned Saturday’s victory at Augusta Nationwide was her largest. She earned exemptions into 4 of the 5 main championships in girls’s skilled golf, beginning with the Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas, on April 18-21.
“It is fairly cool,” Woad mentioned. “I do not assume it is actually sunk in but. I completed my spherical not that way back, so I am nonetheless type of getting again within the second right here. Yeah, it is simply actually cool to be standing in the identical place because the Masters champions have stood and simply following of their footsteps a bit bit.”
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