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Women’s Scottish Open: A major challenge awaits at Dundonald Links

Athlon Sports · Jul 21, 2026 23:00 · 7 min read

Women’s Scottish Open: A Major Challenge Awaits at Dundonald Links — isps_handa_athlon_hero_4x3_crop_safe_1200x900

The easiest way to frame this week’s ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open is as a dress rehearsal for the season’s final major. It is also the laziest. Dundonald Links is firmer than it was when Lottie Woad won in her professional debut last summer. Seven of the world’s top 10 are in the field, along ...

The easiest way to frame this week’s ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open is as a dress rehearsal for the season’s final major. It is also the laziest.

Dundonald Links is firmer than it was when Lottie Woad won in her professional debut last summer. Seven of the world’s top 10 are in the field, along with 19 major champions. World No. 1 Nelly Korda is coming off her first missed cut of the season. Hyo Joo Kim has twice finished runner-up here. Hannah Green returned because she believes a full week of links golf can help solve some of the problems she has encountered at the AIG Women’s Open.

There is nothing casual about that collection of players or their reasons for being in Scotland.

Dundonald will certainly help prepare them for Royal Lytham & St. Annes next week, but preparation is only part of the assignment. This is a significant title on its own, with a deep field and enough uncertainty in the ground and wind to make reputations largely irrelevant once the first ball is struck Thursday.

2026 Women’s Scottish Open

A Field Built for a Fight

Dundonald Links will host one of the deepest fields assembled in tournament history.

Players from the world’s top 10

Major champions in the field

Major titles won collectively

LPGA Tour winners competing

181

Combined LPGA Tour victories

Nationalities represented

Dundonald Has Found Its Teeth

Woad played Dundonald when it was considerably softer last year. Players could attack flags with wedges, spin the ball and trust it to stop near where it landed.

That version of the course helped produce her winning total of 21 under, which tied the tournament’s 72-hole scoring record. The 2026 version will ask for different calculations.

“It’s playing more how it’s meant to be played,” Woad said after seeing both nines Tuesday.

Her description was not a complaint. Woad enjoys links golf and understands that firmer conditions bring the ground into nearly every shot. She expects more run from the tee and several yards of release on wedge approaches that might have spun backward last year.

That changes far more than club selection.

Links golf is often reduced to the ability to hit the ball low, but good links play has never been that simple. Green correctly pointed out that players will need high shots and low ones depending on the wind, lie, landing area and angle into the green. The player who arrives with one stock trajectory will spend four days reacting instead of creating.

Firmer fairways also force players to consider where drives finish, not merely where they land. A tee shot carrying a bunker might continue into trouble. A shorter club can leave a better angle. A ball landing near the center of a green may release toward a tucked hole location or run through the back.

Those decisions can become especially important at the par-5 14th. Tournament data shows that only 32% of the field attempted to reach the green in two in 2024, yet players who went for it gained slightly more than six-tenths of a stroke over those who laid up.

That is a meaningful advantage on one hole. It also presents the kind of uncomfortable question Dundonald should ask repeatedly this week: How aggressive can a player afford to be when the ground is helping the ball travel but making its final destination less certain?

Inside the Links Test

How Firmer Dundonald Changes the Job

Drives Will Keep Moving

Players must calculate where tee shots finish after the first bounce, not simply where they land.

Wedges Will Release

Lottie Woad expects several yards of forward movement instead of the spin players found on softer greens in 2025.

Trajectory Must Stay Flexible

Hannah Green expects players to need both high and low shots as the wind, lie and approach angle change.

Decision Hole

Par-5 14th

Players who attempted to reach the green in two in 2024 gained slightly more than six-tenths of a stroke over those who laid up.

Woad Returns to a Win She Understands Differently

Woad’s victory last year came with an unusual freedom.

It was her first tournament as a professional. She had earned LPGA Tour membership through the Elite Amateur Pathway after tying for third at the Amundi Evian Championship, then immediately won her professional debut at Dundonald.

She broke the tournament’s 54-hole scoring record, tied the 72-hole mark and became its youngest champion. Much of that happened before she had enough professional experience to fully understand how rare it was.

A year later, she does.

Woad has spent 12 months traveling, adjusting to the weekly rhythm of tour golf and competing against the same players she once knew mostly from leaderboards and television. She added another LPGA Tour victory at the Kroger Queen City Championship and arrives in Scotland ranked fifth in the world.

Looking back, Woad said last year’s accomplishment feels “definitely more special now.”

That added understanding brings a different kind of pressure. Last year, Dundonald represented an open door. This time, she walks through the gate as the defending champion, a top-five player and one of the tournament’s central attractions.

Her first two rounds should reinforce that reality. Woad will again play alongside Korda and Charley Hull, recreating the featured group that drew one of the week’s largest crowds in 2025.

Korda remains the player most spectators will come to see. Woad called her “the person everybody is coming to see,” while Green described Korda as women’s golf’s unquestioned needle mover.

She has earned that status. Korda has won four times in 2026, including The Chevron Championship and U.S. Women’s Open, and posted nine top-10 finishes in 11 starts. She leads the LPGA Tour in scoring average, rounds in the 60s, bogey avoidance and several other categories.

Her missed cut at Evian was the first of her season.

One poor week does not make Korda vulnerable. It does make Scotland more interesting.

A victory at Dundonald would also earn Korda another LPGA Hall of Fame point, leaving her one shy of the required threshold. With Royal Lytham waiting, she has an opportunity to erase Evian quickly while adding another consequence to what could otherwise be dismissed as a transitional week.

What to Watch

Five Players, Five Different Stakes

Lottie Woad

Returns for her first LPGA Tour title defense on a course playing firmer than it did during her breakthrough victory.

Nelly Korda

Responds to her first missed cut of 2026 while pursuing another Hall of Fame point.

Hyo Joo Kim

Has two runner-up finishes here and a streak of 134 tournament holes without a three-putt.

Hannah Green

Returns for the first time since 2022, bringing four 2026 victories and a personal connection through her Scottish heritage.

Kiara Romero

Can secure LPGA Tour membership through the Elite Amateur Pathway with a top-40 finish, including ties.

The Stakes Extend Well Beyond the Marquee Group

The Woad-Korda-Hull pairing will attract the galleries, but the most complete links performance may come from somewhere else.

Kim has finished runner-up at this tournament twice in the last three years and has played 134 holes here without a three-putt. She leads the LPGA Tour in putts per green in regulation, putts per round and birdie percentage. On a course where the first putt could arrive from farther away and across more complicated contours, that record matters.

Green’s reasons for returning are both competitive and personal.

She has not played the Women’s Scottish Open since 2022 and acknowledged that skipping the week before the AIG Women’s Open may have contributed to her disappointing record in that major over the past several seasons. Dundonald gives her a chance to reacquaint herself with links golf while working alongside her coach on the shots she expects to need.

Green also has Scottish family ties through her mother, who grew up north of Aberdeen. After winning four times during her 2026 schedule, including two LPGA Tour victories and two titles in Australia, another national open would carry particular significance.

“To be able to win The Scottish Open would be big,” Green said.

There are smaller stages carrying equally serious consequences.

Georgia Hall will make her first LPGA Tour appearance since giving birth to her son, Conor, earlier this year. She has already played three Ladies European Tour events, but Dundonald marks another important step back into the deepest level of competition.

Amateur Kiara Romero enters through a sponsor invitation and needs one more point to secure LPGA Tour membership through the Elite Amateur Pathway. A finish of 40th or better, including ties, would complete the requirement and make her the second player to earn membership through that program after Woad.

That is quite a range of pressure for one field. A defending champion is trying to understand how to repeat something she accomplished before knowing how difficult it was. The world’s best player is responding to a rare failure. A proven major champion is trying to repair her links record. A new mother is continuing her competitive return. An amateur may be four rounds from an LPGA Tour card.

Calling this tournament a tune-up undersells all of it.

A strong week at Dundonald will not guarantee success at Royal Lytham. The courses are different, the pressure will increase and a major championship introduces its own demands. Still, the habits that travel well in links golf are difficult to fake: controlling trajectory, accepting strange bounces, choosing sensible targets and committing when the wind makes certainty impossible.

By Sunday evening, one player will have the trophy. Everyone else will head for Lytham knowing exactly which shot Dundonald kept asking for, and whether she found it.

PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer who serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his recent “The Starter” on R.org, where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To stay updated on all of his latest work, sign up for his newsletter or visit his MuckRack Profile.