A thrilling final-round charge from Miyu Yamashita led to an unexpected playoff with Lottie Woad on the final day of the Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give.
Yamashita posted the low round of the tournament with an 8-under par, 64 on Sunday at Blythefield Country Club to come from five-strokes off the lead to go toe-to-toe with Woad throughout the final day.
“I was able to put together a solid round, and it all felt pretty natural out there,” Yamashita said through a translator after her round. “Lottie played really well too. I honestly didn’t expect it to end up in a playoff.”
Woad came into the final round one stroke behind 36 and 54-hole leader Jing Yan. Woad wasted no time making up ground, rolling in a birdie at her first hole of the day only to give it back with a bogey at the second hole.
Woad couldn’t have foreseen the Sunday charge from Yamashita, who birdied four of her first five holes of the round to vault up the leaderboard. But Yamashita’s putter let her down over the closing stretch as she suffered her first bogey of the day at the par three, 15th hole when she made a three-putt bogey to fall one stroke behind Woad and was never able to retake the lead.
Woad took advantage of the misstep and arrived at the par four 17th hole at 17-under par and tied for the lead with Yamashita, who had birdied the 72nd hole. When Woad’s second shot found the greenside bunker to the left of the putting surface, well below the green, she faced a challenging third shot to make sure she’d be able to salvage a par. Woad did one better, holing her shot from the bunker for birdie to take a one-stroke lead to the closing hole. Woad reacted with her hand on top of her lead in almost dismay and promptly exited the bunker to exchange high-fives with her caddie, David Taylor.
“Obviously, 17 was pretty — a bonus. Didn’t have the easiest bunker shot and obviously made it,” Woad said. “Thought it was going a little bit past, so was happy with that.”
But Woad went from experiencing the highest of highs to the lowest of lows when she three-putted the 72nd hole for bogey to fall into a playoff with Yamashita, who was equally as shocked as Woad to see that the duo would be playing additional holes.
“I went pretty straight, left center. I mean, it went left on me,” Woad said about the putt that lipped out. “I’m not sure if that was me or the green or it’s late in the day. A lot of people played. Could have been any of those things. But, yeah, missed.”
The pair returned to the par five, 18th tee for the first playoff hole where Yamashita was the first to play and found the left rough off the tee while Woad also took her tee ball up the left side and her ball came to rest in the fairway but on the edge of the rough line. The duo were both able to advance their ball with their second shot to just short of the putting surface. Yamashita played her pitch up to within two feet of the hole, which put the pressure on Woad to match her. But Woad sent her chip 12 feet past the hole and she missed the putt coming back to leave the door wide open for Yamashita to make birdie and the win.
“Our whole team has been working hard together throughout the season, and this feels like a result of that effort,” Yamashita said about her victory on Father’s Day in the United States. “I really wanted to win on this special day. That gave me a little extra motivation out there and helped drive me throughout the round. I am incredibly grateful to my family for all the support they give me every day. This win is just as much for them as it is for me.”
Woad’s runner-up finish is her fifth top 10 of the season. Wei-Ling Hsu and Yan Liu were tied for third at 15-under par. Minji Kang posted a final round of 66 to finish tied for fifth with Cassie Porter at 14-under par. Minami Katsu and Grace Kim were tied for seventh at 13-under par along with Jing Yan, the second and third round leader, who closed with a final round of 73 for her second top 10 of the year.
Lauren Walsh shot a closing level-par 72 to finish the week tied for 56th at -3. She can take the positives of another made cut in her rookie campaign and birdieing three of the final six holes after a rough period in the middle of the round.
She now turns her attention to the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship next week at Hazeltine in what will be her maiden major championship appearance in the United States.
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