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.”
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 how many people know Jodi by the number of house lights switched on.
Ewart Shadoff’s father, Harvey, is a former jockey who met Zoe at the stables. Jodi didn’t take to horses growing up but her grandfather bought her a set of plastic golf clubs one Easter. When she broke off the head of one of the clubs, grandpa booked her a lesson.
Ewart Shadoff met her husband, Adam, during her sophomore year at New Mexico. Adam, a young sports reporter, became smitten during an interview, and they’ve been together since. He’s now a sports anchor at Fox35 in Orlando.
At this time last year, Ewart Shadoff, who was struggling with back pain so bad she thought she might not be able to play this season, began working with Waite. The changes Waite made to her swing has enabled Ewart Shadoff to play pain-free.
“Just a different type of hip rotation that’s just off-loaded my lower back a little bit,” she said. “I’ve been able to use my lower body. Definitely hitting the ball farther, but I have – most importantly, I have a lot more control in the club head.”
As for putting, Ewart Shadoff said they’ve worked a lot on speed training, trying to limit three-putts.
“My stroke in general is pretty decent,” she said. “But, you know, matching speed to line has been a pretty big issue for me, and I think that I’m doing a much better job at that.”
When Ashleigh Buhai, 33, broke through with her first LPGA title at the AIG Women’s British Open earlier this summer, she noted that she’s playing the best golf of her life. Veteran Ewart Shadoff feels the same.
“I think all facets of my game are just gelling really well together,” she said, “and I’m doing – all the hard work that I’ve been putting in throughout the season, the past year, has just really been paying off.”
