Sports
IT has been a glorious couple of weeks for British women’s golf, with a long awaited maiden LPGA Tour victory for Jodi Ewart Shadoff following Charley Hull’s success in Texas seven days earlier.
Ewart Shadoff’s win at the Mediheal Championship in California last Sunday was the sort of heart-warming triumph that professional golf has a happy knack of harnessing.
It was a first win in 246 attempts over a 12-year pro career for the US based Yorkshirewoman. The 34-year-old has been a major runner up at the 2017 Women’s Open and she has played three Solheim Cups, winning two.
But she has also suffered debilitating back problems, loss of form, nerve and confidence. There have been times in the not too distant past when she feared she might be finished at the top of the game.
So it is little wonder that her husband, Adam Shadoff, tweeted that he is “beyond proud” following a victory that landed a $270,000 winner’s cheque for his wife.
“From the countless hours of practicing, to the close calls. She’s missed weddings and funerals, injuries so bad I’ve had to help her step into her clothes. Eleven years later, you’re a champion, Jodi,” Shadoff, a Florida-based sports broadcaster, added.
Imagine the extraordinary composure she needed to complete this victory. Ewart Shadoff had led at The Saticoy Club in Somis, Ca, since her first-round 64 last Thursday. She took a four stroke lead into the final round.
But by the ninth on Sunday the advantage was gone. South Africa’s Paula Reto, another of this year’s first-time winners on the LPGA Tour, edged in front when the English player bogeyed the ninth.
What demons and ghosts might have been swirling the Ewart Shadoff mind at this point? This is a player who had relearned her swing in a painful 2021 season in which she endured a miserable spell of 10 missed cuts in 13 tournaments.
But the work with swing coach Grant Waite is now paying rich dividends. It leaves her stronger. Her new hip rotation prevents back pain and she hits the ball longer.
Is it mere coincidence she is stronger of mind as well?
“I just tried to take each shot as it came and just stayed really patient,” Ewart Shadoff, who missed only three fairways all week, explained.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen, so I just tried to stay within myself and hit as good shots as I could and try to stay present.”
A far from straightforward objective with major champions Yuka Saso, Georgia Hall and Danielle Kang in pursuit. But Ewart Shadoff covered the inward half in a composed and bogey-free 34, picking up crucial birdies at the 12th and 14th holes.
Her one-footer for victory felt like it was 20 feet but she calmly knocked it in before champagne corks popped. “I learned that I could fight through adversity,” Ewart Shadoff said afterwards.
“I can play under the nerves, which has been kind of a problem for me in the past.”
This was validation as much as victory. She added: “I proved to myself that I can do it. I proved I can win. It’s been a long time. I didn’t think I would ever be sat here honestly.”
It is easy to read too much into a single win but this will surely embolden Ewart Shadoff, the daughter of former jockey and trainer Harvey Ewart and his wife Zoe.
Growing up in Northallerton, Jodi did not follow what might have been natural hoof prints into racing, rather becoming fixated on golf after her grandfather bought her a set of plastic clubs.
By establishing herself on the LPGA Tour but basing herself in the US, she has been less vaunted than Hall, who won the 2018 Women’s Open at Royal Lytham and Hull, who became only the fifth Briton to claim multiple LPGA titles with her recent win.
After that success at The LPGA Ascendant event in Texas, Hull described how Hall’s successes had proved an inspiration. “Kind of spurs you on,” said the 26-year-old from Kettering.
“And it’s good how we can push each other, because we hang out a lot off the golf course.”
There is no doubting that Ewart Shadoff has also responded. And likewise Hall, who has quietly put together an impressively consistent season.
Last Sunday, she collected five birdies in six holes to charge into a share of third place, two behind Ewart Shadoff at 14 under par. Hall has not missed a cut since June 2021 and won the Saudi Ladies title on the Ladies European Tour in March this year.
The 26-year-old from Dorset will, no doubt, be pushing for further glory.
And with three stars simultaneously hitting form, the coming months could prove an exciting time for British women’s golf.
-BBC sport
KN
Tags: Charley Hull Jodi Ewart Shadoff Paula Reto Yuka Saso
