Lottie Woad provided a glimpse into the future. As the darkened grey clouds leaked rain, and the consistently strong wind buffeted players and caused balls to oscillate on the more exposed greens, the Englishwoman – the world’s number one ranked amateur for just more than a year – seemed immune to the elements to claim a three strokes lead at the midway stage of the KPMG Women’s Irish Open over the O’Meara Course at the sprawling estate in Maynooth, Co Kildare.
A second round 67 to add to her opening 68 gave Woad the outright lead on 11-under-par 155, three clear of Switzerland’s Chiara Tamburlini – last year’s winner of the LET order of merit – with Solheim Cup players Charley Hull and Madelene Sagstrom among a quartet four shots adrift of the leader.
Woad’s golf was exceptional in many ways, with others cast in a fight for survival – among them Leona Maguire – as the dervish of a wind swirled and gusted, so that the pink flagsticks strained to their limits.
To Maguire’s credit, she battled to ensure survival. Her second round 75 for 147, one-over, was achieved with fight typical of her DNA, all the more so for the fact her finish came after a double-bogey six from nowhere on the par 4 11th which had her in danger of missing the weekend. Birdies on the par 3 14th and 16th and stubbornly executed par saves on the two finishing holes, however, ensured safety if not quite at the business part of things.
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“It was more of a grind today,” admitted Maguire of a round where the strong winds seemed to switch direction at a whim, adding: “Definitely those gusts were very tricky to say the least. I’m proud of how I hung in and, yeah, two more days.”
That double bogey on the 11th came with a 5-wood in hand from the fairway which was pushed right of the green into thick rough. “I don’t really know what happened that shot, really. I was hitting a five wood in, and I think it caught a gust and spun off,” she recalled. Her recovery from the rough flew across the green into a bunker and before she knew it Maguire was walking off the green with a six on her scorecard.
Her response was good and brave. The birdies on the two par 3s left: a 6-hybrid to 12 feet on the 14th and then a 9-iron to 12 feet on the 16th. Vitally, she also managed par saves – pitching dead on the 17th and 18th – to keep the run home clean.
“The forecast this morning said 60 kilometre an hour gusts. It’s windy, and we had that in Dallas [for the Women’s PGA] a few weeks ago. But when it’s warm there, it’s a little different [here]. When it’s like this, and the ball’s going nowhere, you really have to do a lot of calculations, a lot of extra thinking. You have to make the best of what you have on any given day and I felt like it would have been very easy to give up today, and I didn’t do that. And I know there’s a lot of people wanting to come watch me over the weekend, and yeah, hopefully the draw is a little bit kinder to us tomorrow. We’ll see if we can post number,” said Maguire.
Out of the 16 Irish players who started, just four – Anna Foster, Emma Fleming, Maguire, and Canice Screen – survived into the weekend.
Foster, a 23-year-old rookie on the LET, shot a 74 for one-under 145 in tied-25th to lead the home challenge with Fleming (77 for 146 in tied-40th), Maguire (75 for 147 in tied-49th) and Screen (75 for 148 in tied-56th) all progressing to the final two rounds.
Others agonisingly missed out: Sara Byrne, again, was a shot too many (74 par 149); Áine Donegan unfortunately triple-bogeyed the par 5 17th which proved costly (76 for 150); amateur Anna Abom double-bogeyed the last (76 for 150), while Lauren Walsh birdied the 15th and 16th in her bid to make the cut but ultimately fell short in closing with two pars (75 for 150).
Woad – playing in the tournament on an invite, as one of her sponsors Novellus, the Dublin-based finance company, is also a co-sponsor of the Irish Open – played golf that made the difficult conditions almost irrelevant. Through 36 holes, she has managed 12 birdies and suffered just one bogey.
A proven winner in her amateur career, which included last year’s Augusta National Women’s Championship along with Curtis Cup and Vagliano Trophy wins with GB&I, Woad has proven herself comfortable playing against the professionals (including a top-10 in last year’s AIG Open) even if that expected move to the LPGA Tour is a little time away.
“Everyone’s obviously great players, whether that be in this or even the amateur events we play. I’m just trying to stick to my own game,” said Woad, who has executed that gameplan to perfection so far.
