How did Lottie Woad get to World No. 1? “She worked her backside off”

No one who saw it will surely forget. Even by Augusta National’s standards, it was golf for the legends.

Three birdies in the final four holes, the last a difficult slider at the 18th that seemed impossible to stop never mind hole, catapulted Lottie Woad into millions of TV screens.

She won the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in April – capping off a sensational rise from club golfer to major competitor in just seven years.

The 20-year-old has since become England’s first female World No. 1 amateur, has won the prestigious Mark H McCormack Medal, and will tee it up this week in the AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews.

But how did she get from Farnham, via Georgia, to the Old Course? What support did she receive along the way? How much of developing a talent is down to drive and how much to coaching?

We spoke to Becca Hembrough, England Golf’s performance manager for women’s golf, to find out more about how Lottie has hit the heights…

How has Lottie Woad developed as a player?

How did you first meet Lottie Woad?

Lottie came onto the programme in 2017 when she was around 14. She was part of the regional programme in the south with Alex Saary and she came onto that squad with quite a high handicap relative to other players.

She just worked her backside off and that’s what she’s done the whole time she’s been involved in the pathway. She works really hard. Once she started getting great information from Alex, in addition to her coach Luke Bone at Farnham, it just started to accelerate.

She played for England at Under-16 level in 2019. We have these awesome little international opportunities at U16 level where we play Switzerland, Spain, Ireland across the year and they’re great for those younger golfers to get a taste of international golf.

Would it be unusual for the programme to see a player at 14? We sometimes have an idea of players being ‘discovered’ almost as soon as they’ve picked up a club…

Not necessarily. There is a mix. We don’t have the numbers they do in the boys’ programme and so we do have girls that come onto the programme a lot earlier.

We will have players at 12 and 13 in the regional programme that have come through the counties. But there will always be players that come in a little later and develop quickly.

Alex has always said he remembers Lottie coming in and she wasn’t someone that he initially thought, ‘this kid could be amazing’.

But it was more how she went at it and how she absorbed the information.

She worked hard with all the coaching opportunities that were given to her at that point and it just set her off.

How do you bring on a player and get them in a position where they can play for England? How does the programme work?

Throw into the mix that players will have a home coach, and might have a county coach as well, and there are a lot of things going on already as they come into a regional squad.

In the regional programme, we acknowledge that they’re usually getting good and regular technical information. We focus more on building the short game, wedge play, putting, how to structure practice, and giving them the skills to manage themselves.

We’ll get out onto the golf course with them. While their work with home coaches will see them working technically on a driving range or a practice ground, we’ve got more time to get them out on the golf course and support them with course management and playing the game.

Regional coaches also use their days to go and do practice rounds with them ahead of an event like the English Girls’ or English U16s.

It’s more than just teaching them how to get better technically. We look at how we can impact a player in addition to everything that’s going on with their home and county coaching. The squad also trains together with a strength and conditioning coach to get strong and learn about the importance of nutrition and rest.

In the national squads, this is ramped up with more coaching and competitive opportunities and access to a more specialised coaching team, like a putting coach and sport psychologist.

How important are stats and data in driving that forward?

It’s massive. Upgame is the stats package we use and it’s used by all the regional and national players and coaches. Steve Robinson (England Women’s Coach) is world class in this space and you can see the impact he’s had with Matt Fitzpatrick.

We recognise that as a country we haven’t got a huge number of girls playing the game and so we’ve got to be efficient with everything. Using data is a massive part of that.

All the regional players will input all their data. For every competitive round they play, they have to add it into Upgame. And this gives the coaches and players facts to work with, so everything has a purpose to their work.

It feels like there is an onus then on the players themselves. You point them in the right direction, and give them the tools, but they need to drive it?

With any elite or aspiring elite athlete in any sport there must be a drive and a real desire to want to do it themselves.

You can encourage them, and give them great information and all the support, but they’ve got to want to do it.

We’re not with them all the time. A regional coach is only going to see them around 25 to 30 days a year. As a national coach, it’s a similar number of days through the winter and players get access to them through the summer at events.

But they spend a lot more time on their own in their home environment. It’s educating them to understand their stats and how to drive their own practice sessions.

When did you realise Lottie Woad was going to become as good as she has?

Covid definitely affected Lottie and players of her age group. We didn’t go to the European Team Championships for a couple of years.

I remember she was doing her A-Levels in 2022 and she had a very strong domestic year. She’s intelligent and her academics are important to her but, despite her A-Levels, she made the decision to just keep playing and playing. Some players choose to do that and some to step back.

She was selected for the women’s team for the European Team Championships at Conwy – into an already strong and established team at that level with players like Caley McGinty, Charlotte Heath, and Annabell Fuller.

They won and she lapped up the experience but, also, she slotted right in and contributed to the team. She then went to Florida State University, which is a very strong programme, and she just flew. Her freshman year was incredible.

That’s very difficult to do because it’s a huge transition to manage, you’re away from home, and going into a very different way of life. You’re having to balance academics, and playing golf, while doing everything for yourself. To go there and have such a good year showed she was still continuing on that trajectory.

Last year, she had a fabulous European Team Championships in Finland and played the World Amateur Team Championships in Abu Dhabi.

We finished 4th, were very close to medalling, and it was our best team performance at a worlds. Lottie finished 4th individually and we went away from that thinking, ‘we know she could be World No. 1. What can we do to support that trajectory?’ We didn’t think that it was going to happen so quickly though.

A big part was the remote individual support Steve Robinson gives to the players based out in the United States and the coaching opportunities we put on to see them face to face.

And we also committed to him going out to the Augusta National Women’s Invitational to specifically caddy for Lottie

He’d made that trip for a couple of years but this time we knew Lottie was going to be the only one in the programme playing in that event – the previous year we’d had four or five.

We made the decision, even though it was quite a chunky investment, that it was the right thing to support her at that event.

Robbo will say that, because of the way Lottie plays, she would always be in with a chance of winning that event if she’s on it. That she went and won, in the manner she did and with him on the bag, was incredible.

I get goosebumps just thinking about it because I guess I’ve had the privilege of seeing both Lottie and Robbo progress.

I’ve done this role for 12 years and I’ve seen him invest in himself and develop as a coach but also Lottie works so hard.

She’s got such hunger to get better and improve and compete. We talk about players being prepared to pay the price and having that need to learn and develop, and she does. And she’s just such a lovely girl to have in the squad. Her family are so supportive and they’re a great group of people to work with and support.

What Lottie’s done has given belief to younger players following in her footsteps that it can be done, and I’m so proud of that.

There will be a lot of pressure now on Lottie Woad to turn pro. As a mentor, how do you think she’ll cope with that?

Lottie is so grounded. The interviews and the hype will certainly be very different to what she’s used to but I just get the sense she’s taking it all in her stride.

Every experience she’s notching up is another opportunity for her to learn and test her game against the best and on world class golf courses.

She will be absorbing from each experience what she can learn. But don’t get me wrong she’s going to want to be out there and compete [at the AIG Women’s Open] because that’s just in her!

For sure she’ll be thinking about the next step, but I’m sure it will be considered and she’ll take her time with it. From a programme perspective, we’re still planning to have her around and supporting her development!

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