England’s world number one amateur Lottie Woad finished third at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur as Spain’s Carla Bernat Escuder took the title.
Woad, 21, had jointly led overnight but a bogey on the par-three 16th effectively ended her hopes of becoming the first player to win successive ANWA championships.
She birdied three of the final four holes to win last year’s title but was unable to match that charge this year, missing a 10-foot birdie putt on the 15th and then dumping her tee shot on the next into a greenside bunker and taking three more from there.
Woad had started the final round on nine under – after two rounds at the nearby Champions Retreat course – but could only shoot a level-par 72 at the famed Georgia course that will host next week’s Masters.
A consolation for Woad is that she continues her record of finishing inside the top three of her past nine strokeplay events.
Bernat Escuder rolled in a four-foot par putt on the last to win the sixth staging of the championship by one shot from from American teenage sensation Asterisk Talley.
The 21-year-old Spaniard had six birdies and two bogeys in her round of 68 to hold off Talley, who also shot a four-under-par final round.
Talley, 16, holed her second shot from the fairway for an eagle two on the par-four first.
She then had successive birdies on the 16th and 17th holes to put pressure on Bernat Escuder, but the Spaniard kept her nerve to par the last.
The victory entitles Bernat Escuder to play in four of the year’s five women’s majors, including the US Women’s Open and Women’s Open.
