World number one Lottie Woad led the way among the qualifiers for the match play stage of The 121st Women’s Amateur Championship at Portmarnock today.

Woad carded a six-under-par round of 66 to move to nine-under-par for the stroke play qualifying rounds, five ahead of her nearest challenger, Meja Ortengren from Sweden. 

Woad is currently ranked No. 2 in the Golfweek/AmateurGolf.com Women's Rankings.

In calm but chilly conditions at the historic links north of Dublin, the 20-year-old from Farnham, England bounced back from a bogey at the first by playing a 100 yard approach to the second to tap-in range for a birdie. Woad holed out from 15ft for a birdie three at the 4th and followed up with another birdie at the par-3 7th.

 The Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion kept up the momentum with consecutive birdies on the 9th and 10th. Another two birdies in three holes from the 13th crowned an excellent round for the 2022 R&A Girls’ Amateur Champion.

In-form number one

This is the Florida State University student’s second appearance in The Women’s Amateur Championship and maintains the excellent form which saw her notch up one win and eight top eight finishes on the college circuit this season.

“The first goal was just to qualify and then when you’re up there just keep playing well and see if you can be the leading qualifier,” she said.

“The conditions today were definitely a lot easier so I could attack a lot of pins but I still had to respect a few of the pins. I definitely holed a lot of putts today so that always helps.

“I like playing links golf. I haven’t played it in a while so it was good just to get the feel back. I played relatively conservatively off most tees to avoid some fairway bunkers but in match play I might hit a few more drivers. I was kind of just testing it out the last couple of days.

“I’ll have momentum and confidence from playing well, but this is when the actual competition starts."