Almost as soon as Dawn Woodard returned from her USGA Senior Championship she was off to play in the USGA Mid-Am Championship held at the Monterey Peninsula C.C. (Dunes Course) • Pebble Beach, Calif. 

Woodard finished stroke play tied with 12 other golfers for the four remaining spots in the match play bracket. She birdied the playoff hole and made the field of 64 for Match Play but lost out in her first match.

The Golf Club was able to catch up with the new USGA Senior Champion as she was preparing to head to California. This story appears in the October Issue of The Golf Club.

by Stan Olenik, Editor-Publisher, The Golf Club

Two down with six to play, Dawn Woodard found herself standing in a fairway bunker, the ball perched above her feet, staring at a lie she didn’t like and a scoreboard that looked worse. 

On the scorecard her semifinal match at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur was slipping away.

“If you’d told me I could tie that hole, I’d have run to the next tee,” she said with a laugh. 

Instead, she pulled off the shot of the week — a crisp iron that landed just behind the flag and changed the trajectory of the championship.

That swing at The Omni Homestead Resort in Virginia kept Woodard’s dream alive. She clawed back, forced extra holes, and eventually walked away the next day with a national trophy in her hands. 

The Greenville golfer, long respected as one of the state’s fiercest competitors, had finally secured the elusive prize — a USGA championship.

“When I look back at it now, it just feels like everything lined up,” Woodard said. “It’s a dream come true, but also a relief. I’ve always known I could do it, but there are so many pieces that have to come together for it to actually happen.”

This wasn’t the first time Woodard had faced a career-defining moment in a national championship. She had been medalist in three other trips to USGA championships, only to bring home disappointment. 

In 2007 at Desert Forest in Arizona, she stood over an eight-foot putt to extend a quarterfinal match, only to leave it short in the heart. Two years later, another quarterfinal slipped away in Florida. Both times she felt the sting of being close, only to watch the trophy belong to someone else.

That history made the victory even sweeter. “She’s worked really hard this year,” said longtime friend and caddy for the week, Cissye Gallagher. “She’s worked on her wedge game, and she’s gotten fit. She’s just really put in the time and energy to do it. I’m really proud of her.”

For Woodard, the triumph was not just about shotmaking but about balance — knowing that after qualifying for 35 USGA championships, wins and close calls, the opportunity was still there at 51 years old. “Once you turn 50, you don’t know if you will have another chance,” she said. “To finally win one — it’s just so special.”

The national championship filled in a blank line on Woodard’s golf résumé, a single entry that now sits atop an already decorated career. 

A Furman standout from 1992–96, she helped the Paladins win three Southern Conference titles, claimed the league’s individual crown twice, and finished 21st at the 1995 NCAA Championship as Furman placed sixth. 

She has since added eight South Carolina Women’s Amateur championships and a handful of Carolinas Golf Association titles, cementing her place among the state’s all-time greats.

Her golf has always been lived alongside family. With daughters Ashley, Sam, and Caitlin now in their 20s, Woodard still schedules tournaments around graduations, birthdays, and vacations. She skipped the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball this spring because it conflicted with her youngest’s college graduation.

 “Golf has never been my number one priority,” she said. “It never will be. Whether I win or lose, the next day my life looks the same. That keeps it in perspective.”

That perspective proved valuable during the long week at the Homestead. Ten rounds of golf in eight days meant fatigue, nerves, and stretches where good swings didn’t always pay off. 

“It’s really hard to play that much golf and keep it all lined up,” she said. “You know you’re going to have a few holes you’d like back, but you just keep going. That’s the only way through it.”

Her semifinal against 2022 champion Shelly Stofer provided the critical test. That bunker shot on 13 flipped the momentum, and Woodard rode it into the finals. Against Australia’s Sue Wooster, she fought through another back-and-forth match, scrambling for pars on 17 and 18 to extend the championship to extra holes. 

On the 20th, she made a steady par while Wooster faltered, finally giving Woodard the USGA win she had chased for decades.

Adding to the magic was a surprise arrival — husband Jason driving through the night from Greenville to be there when the trophy was presented. Their daughters celebrated from home, knowing their mom finally claimed the prize that had eluded her for so long.

For most players, a USGA title would be the exclamation point — a time to take a breath, reflect on the journey, and find a permanent spot on the mantel for the trophy

 For Dawn Woodard, it was more like Wednesday.

Just days after raising the Senior Women’s Amateur trophy, she was back at Woodfin Ridge collecting the Carolinas Golf Association Senior title. 

Skipping it would have been understandable, even expected. Instead, her presence sent a clear message — a show of gratitude for the organization and competition that helped shape her into a national champion, and a reminder that she still relishes the grind.

And there’s little rest ahead. The U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur looms, a championship where the senior champion suddenly finds herself paired against the next generation — golfers half her age who are chasing the same dream Dawn Turner once did at Furman.

That stage will also give Woodard a chance to hear something new: her name introduced as a USGA champion. 

“I think when I walk up to that first tee and they say it, ‘Fore please, now driving, the 2025 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Champion, from Greenville, South Carolina, Dawn Woodard,’ that’s when it will finally sink in,” she said.