The tears said it all. Jodi Ewart Shadoff, playing in her 246th career start on the LPGA, finally found the winner’s circle at the LPGA Mediheal Championship.
“I didn’t know if this moment would ever come,” said Ewart Shadoff, who became the third wire-to-wire winner of the season, joining Lydia Ko and In Gee Chun.
The 34-year-old Englishwoman came into Sunday with a four-stroke lead and watched it melt away as the day wore on at The Saticoy Club. She even fell behind.
While Ewart Shadoff dueled most of the day with South Africa’s Paula Reto, another first-time winner this season, several players put themselves in position down the stretch. Late bogeys from Reto on Nos. 16 and 17 gave Ewart Shadoff some breathing room, and pars down the last four holes proved enough for her to hang on for the victory at 15-under 273.
Major champion Yuka Saso closed with a 66 after posting birdies on four of the last five holes. Saso finished alone in second while Georgia Hall (65), Danielle Kang (67) and Reto (69) finished two shots back.
Ewart Shadoff played her first full season on the LPGA in 2012 and made the Solheim Cup team not long after earning her tour card. She has since represented Europe on three occasions.
Considered one of the best ball-strikers on tour, Ewart Shadoff has struggled on the greens and with injuries over the course of her career. She averaged 29 putts for the week this week in California and it proved the difference-maker.
“I’ve always struggled with putting and it’s been a source of frustration for a long time,” she told Golf Channel after the round. “But this week it was the best part of my game, so, yeah. I think practicing putting goes a long way.”
Jodi Ewart Shadoff reacts on the 18th green after winning the 2022 LPGA Mediheal Championship at The Saticoy Club in Somis, California. (Photo: Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
Ewart Shadoff is the 10th first-timer winner this season and the 24th different winner. The record for the most different winners in a season is 26, which happened in 1991 and 2018. There are four tournaments remaining in the 2022 season.
Ewart Shadoff, who now works with former PGA Tour winner Grant Waite, missed only three fairways for the week and hit at least 14 fairways each round.
Raised in a small horse racing town in North Yorkshire, England, Ewart Shadoff’s mother, Zoe, once said that Middleham is so quaint, if you walked around town at 2 a.m. during Solheim Cup week, you’d get an idea of…
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