AUGUSTA, Georgia – LSU’s No. 1 ranked Ingrid Lindblad looked forward to one more chance at Augusta National Golf Club after missing the cut to play in the final round last year in the 2023 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
Saturday, she got that chance and posted a solid 3-under round of 69 to finish in third place in the final round of the 2024 ANWA for her third top three finish in four appearances in this prestigious event.
No other player in the first five years of this tournament has posted three top three finishes.
On a day that turned favorable for scoring with a tournament record nine under par rounds, Lindblad finished at 4-under 212 and in solo third, four shots out of the win by second round leader Lottie Woad of England and Florida State, who birdied three-of-the-last-four holes (15, 17, 18) to rally to win by one. Woad shot an 8-under 208 after a final round of 69.
For nearly an hour prior to that, it looked like Bailey Shoemaker’s tourney record 66 would be the difference as she posted 7-under 209 with much of the field with holes to play, but came up one shot short to finish in second. Shoemaker is a freshman at Southern California.
For Lindblad, the top player in both the World Amateur and NCAA national rankings she could leave Augusta with a smile on her face with a round that featured six birdies on the day and 12 birdies in the tournament’s 54 holes (22.2 percent), T4 in the field. Lindblad had just seven holes with scores higher than par in the event.
“Overall it was a pretty good round,” Lindblad said in the media area Saturday. “Hit a ton of good shots out there. Obviously started birdie-birdie, which was a really nice start out here. I don’t think I missed a putt under eight or nine feet. Good putting day.”
Lindblad was one of three in the 35-player field with six birdies and her 12 total for the 54 holes was T2 in the event. She hit 12 greens in regulation and was fifth in the field for the 54 holes, hitting 38 greens in regulation. She was T3 in Saturday’s field with 27 putts.
Lindblad’s day started on a hole that has been her nemesis, the opening par four with the big bunker up the right side. She pounded her tee shot over the bunker into a good position, put her approach close and quickly moved to 1-under on the day.
“I think people sitting behind the tee box didn’t realize it carried the bunkers,” Lindblad laughed. “They’re like, oh, no, it’s too far right, it’s in the bunker, but I was like, no, it’s fine, it carried the bunker on the right side. We’re all good. Yeah, I mean, I was just trying to hit a little fade, kind of start it at the left edge of the bunker, and it did.
Lindblad also had a birdie putt on the par 5 second, the par fourth and the par 5 eighth hole to turn in 2-under 34.
The Swedish star played a precise shot to the famed par 3 12th hole over Rae’s Creek at Amen Corner that led to a long birdie make to get her to 4-under par for the tournament.
“We’ve kind of talked about you only play to the left side of the green because that green gets — that’s the longest part of the green,” Lindblad said. “I was trying to play it basically the left edge of the back bunker because that’s where the green is the longest, so it’s easiest to hit that part.
“I was a little in between clubs, so I hit the longer one but knocked it down a little bit, and I thought I took it too far right at first and it would be in the bunker,” she said. “But I come up there, and it’s a 23-, 25-footer — 12 is the green that breaks the least on this course, but it’s also the slowest. It’s still a lot of break in that putt, actually, that I had. I held it up quite a bit, and it just dropped in from the left side … That was the longest putt I made today, and it was a good hole to do it on.”
Lindblad got to 5-under for the event on the par 5 15th hole, a hole she eagled in 2022.
“So I hit a good tee shot, and I was kind of in between clubs, so I was standing there with a 4-iron at first because we thought it was more into. So we were already on the clock. We were on the clock for the whole back nine basically or from 13, I think. So I was already a little stressed,” Lindblad said.
“Me and my 4-iron right now, we’re not the best buddies, so I was already like, I don’t like this club, so I backed off it and grabbed my 5-iron instead. Hit a really good shot in there. I saw it in there, and I was like, if this is not good, it’s not fair.
The ball rolled past the pin and just off the back of the green.
“Kind of bumped a chip, made a four- or five-footer for birdie, which was a nice birdie,” she said. Then the rules official came up to me after — I don’t know, somewhere in there, and he was like, you got a bad time, just because I backed off it. So then the rest of the round I felt kind of stressed. But we made it through.”
Lindblad made her only bogey of the second nine on 18 when she hit her tee shot in the fairway bunker and couldn’t get up and down for par.
Lindblad in three competitive rounds here has posted 75 (2021, T3), 68 (2022, T2) and 69 (2024 3rd).
When asked about her memories of Augusta and her four appearances in the tournament she commented: “I mean, I feel every time I come in here, I just have a smile on my face. It doesn’t matter how it goes. You’re happy to be here. It’s such an amazing experience and a test for your golf game for sure.”
And she sees the big picture of the success for women’s golf, amateur golf and the younger eyes it is drawing.
“I think it’s a big milestone for a lot of people. Getting here shows that you’ve played well for a couple years. You get to compete on the biggest stage,” Lindblad said. “I think having everyone out here today, I see a lot of younger kids thinking it’s really fun to be here. I think it’s amazing, and it’s such a nice atmosphere out here today.”
Included in the group of patrons Saturday included a large group of LSU alums/fans cheering Lindblad on and also on hand were her LSU coaches, Garrett Runion and Alexis Rather, along with the members of the LSU women’s golf team.
The LSU squad now must quickly get ready for the Southeastern Conference Championships which start on Friday at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida.
The tournament has a new site and starting date to allow players a couple of days to return to campus after this week-long event.
TOURNAMENT NOTES: LSU signee Rocio Tejedo had one of the four hole-in-ones late in the day Friday at the famed Augusta National Par 3 contest. The players in the field were allowed to play the course either before or after their practice round for the first time this year.
The opening of the course for patrons was delayed 15 minutes and tee times delayed 30 minutes on Saturday because of frost concerns as temperatures dipped into the low 40s. The temperatures did get into the low 60s as the final round concluded.
In 2023, only three players posted subpar rounds at Augusta National, the fewest in the first five years of the event. In the first playing of the tournament in 2019, there were eight subpar rounds, the most of the event until this year.
Lauren Kim of Canada hit the first shot of the final round Saturday with Augusta member and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Master Chairman Billy Payne (2006-17) and golf Hall of Fame member and golf ambassador Annika Sorenstam among those in the gallery. With 35 players, Kim played with a marker, Taya Buxton of Paine College, who was the first recipient of the Lee Elder Scholarship to honor the first African-American player to be invited and play in The Masters and one of the honorary starters in the 2021 Masters.
Augusta National Women’s Amateur
At Augusta, Georgia – Augusta National Golf Club
54-Hole Final Results (Par 72-216)
1 Lottie Woad, England – 68-71-69 – 208 -8
2 Bailey Shoemaker, USA – 70-73-66 – 209 -7
3 Ingrid Lindblad, Sweden – 67-76-69 – 212 -4
4 Jasmine Koo, USA – 69-74-70 – 213 -3
T5 Casey Weidenfeld, USA – 72-72-70 — 214 -2
T5 Gianna Clemente, USA – 72-72-70 – 214 -2
7 Hannah Darling, Scotland – 66-77-72 – 215 -1
T8 Asterisk Talley, USA – 72-75-70 – 217 +1
T8 Rachel Kuehn, USA – 73-74-70 – 217 +1
T8 Eila Galitsky, Thailand – 67-76-74 – 217 +1
T8 Hailey Borja, USA – 71-72-74 – 217 +1
T8 Mirabel Ting, Malaysia – 69-74-74 – 217 +1
T8 Maisie Filler, USA – 68-73-76 – 217 +1
T14 Amanda Sambach, USA – 69-73-76 – 218 +2
T14 Rin Yoshida, Japan – 72-75-71 – 218 +2
T14 Lauren Kim, Canada – 72-75-71 – 218 +2
T17 Carla Bernat Escuder, Spain – 78-69-72 – 219 +3
T17 Hinano Muguruma, Japan – 70-75-74 – 219 +3
T17 Sayaka Teraoka, Japan – 72-72-75 – 219 +3
T20 Farah O’Keefe, USA – 71-76-73 – 220 +4
T20 Andrea Revuelta, Spain – 72-74-74 – 220 +4
T20 Cayetana Fernandez Garcia-Poggio, Spain – 70-74-76 – 220 +4
T20 Megha Ganne, USA – 70-74-76 – 220 +4
T20 Paula Martin Sampedro, Spain – 72-73-76 – 221 +5
T20 Louise Rydqvist, Sweden – 70-73-78 – 221 +5
T26 Amari Avery, USA – 70-77-75 – 222 +6
T26 Kajsa Arwefjall, Sweden – 72-74-76 – 222 +6
28 Nora Sundberg, Sweden – 70-75-78 – 223 +7
29 Mamika Shinchi, Japan – 71-76-77 -224 +8
T30 Maria Jose Marin, Columbia – 69-78-78 – 225 +9
T30 Catherine Park, USA – 71-76-78 – 225 +9
T30 Laney Frye, USA – 72-75-78 – 225 +9
T30 Emilia Migliaccio, USA – 75-72-78 – 225 +9
T30 Francesca Fiorellini, Italy – 67-78-80 – 225 +9
35 Hailee Cooper, USA – 76-71-79 – 226 +10
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