20-year-old Lottie Woad is a revelation. Her performances in the women’s majors this year have put the spotlight on the young Briton and raised the question of where this young and seemingly developed golfer has come from and whether she can be seen playing in the regular LPGA Tour events.

Lottie Woad is ranked as the No. 1 amateur in the world, a rank she achieved in June of this year. She has not yet earned her LPGA card. Even though she is proving that she can compete with the best, she is still part of the college golf circuit where she plays for Florida State University and is going to stay an amateur for the foreseeable future.

The Surrey native can compete to earn an LPGA Tour card by participating in the LPGA Q-series. It is a 3-stage series involving a pre-qualifying round, a qualifying round, and a final qualifying round. She would have to compete in the Q-Series and earn a top-45 finish to get an LPGA card.

Failing to do so, a player who has qualified for the final qualifying round would continue their professional golf journey on the Epson Tour. It remains to be seen whether Lottie Woad will participate in this year’s Q-Series, of which the final round will be held at the Magnolia Grove Golf Club in Alabama from December 5 to December 9, 2024.

Woad rose to amateur golf stardom after becoming the first British woman to win at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in April. This victory secured her invitations to four majors in 2024, making her year a busy one. She made quite an impact in another major, the Chevron Championship, in which she earned a T23 finish. She went on to play in the US Women’s Open and the Evian Championship, although she didn’t make it through the weekend in either of the two events. Her performance is surely to make golf fans curious as to how she has developed as an amateur.

This 20-year-old is a rising star

Although WAGR Ranked 1 Woad does not compete with the likes of Nelly Korda and Charley Hull regularly, her performances in amateur golf display a very high level of skill and maturity. This is clear when you see her list of accolades. In 2021, she won the Welsh Women’s Open Stroke Play Championship, and then in May 2022, she made her debut on the Ladies European Tour in the Madrid Open. Then, just two months later, Woad won the Girls Amateur Championship.

She won the iconic award on the back of several great results, such as securing T4th in the 2023 World Amateur Team Championship, winning the Augusta National as mentioned earlier, and finishing in solo second place at the NCAA championships at Florida State. But one achievement stands out: Woad won the Mark H. McCormack medal in August 2024 for the leading amateur woman, which made her the first woman from England to win that medal.

In her amateur career, she has 3 wins and 19 top-10 finishes. She has been the No. 1 amateur for nine weeks in total. Do comment below if you will be following Lottie Woad as she competes with the best in the AIG Women’s British Open at St. Andrews.