{"id":788269,"date":"2026-07-09T02:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T02:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788269\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T02:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T02:39:12","slug":"lachlan-wood-defends-us-adaptive-open-title-as-kipp-popert-makes-usga-history-australian-golf-digest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788269\/","title":{"rendered":"Lachlan Wood defends US Adaptive Open title as Kipp Popert makes USGA history \u2013 Australian Golf Digest"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Photo: Logan Whitton]<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s Lachlan Wood has successfully defended his Lower Limb Impairment title at the 5th US Adaptive Open Championship, closing at six under at Woodmont Country Club, the sole Aussie in the field backing up his pre-tournament defence bid.<\/p>\n

Wood\u2019s title defence came in a tournament that will be remembered for a historic performance from Kipp Popert. The 28-year-old Englishman, born with cerebral palsy and widely considered the best adaptive golfer in the world, had already scorched the South Course at Woodmont for a six-under-par 30 on Wednesday and was nine under for the round heading into the last hole.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Lachlan Wood targets US Adaptive Open titles<\/a><\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t good enough for Popert. A year earlier, he\u2019d opened the tournament with a stunning 61 on the same layout in Rockville, Maryland, and he was convinced he could still get to that number this year when he chose to hit driver off the deck on his approach shot at the par-5 18th. An eagle would have given him another 61.<\/p>\n

Popert was ready to show off in front of a national television audience on Golf Channel.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t work out, he ultimately made par, but it says a lot about the mindset that led Popert to USGA history. With his closing 63 and six-shot win on Wednesday while competing in the Coordination Impairment category, he won his fourth straight Adaptive Open overall men\u2019s title and became the only golfer to win four consecutive USGA championships.<\/p>\n

To understand his company in that, know this: only Tiger Woods, who captured three straight wins in both the US Junior and US Amateur, and Hollis Stacy, with three straight victories in the US Girls\u2019 Junior, had pulled off a three-peat.<\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s Simon Seungmin Lee, who competes in the Intellectual Impairment category because of developmental disabilities, closed with a 65 and finished second by six strokes to Popert. It was Lee who won the inaugural US Adaptive Open before Popert began this four-year heater.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, this is our major. I don\u2019t think I need to explain that,\u201d Popert said after the second round on what the tournament means to him. \u201cI think anyone that knows me, this is why I\u2019ve practised and played my whole life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t around when I was a kid. But for whatever reason, I just wanted to be really, really good at this game and play under pressure and win tournaments. I don\u2019t struggle with motivation. I don\u2019t struggle with practising.\u201d<\/p>\n

Popert has been playing golf since he was three years old and has undergone 12 surgeries in his life. Last year, he won three titles on the G4D Tour for adaptive players, and he owns a massive lead as the No.1 player in the G4D World Rankings.<\/p>\n

\"Max<\/p>\n

[Photo: Logan Whitton] Seated player champion Max Togisala plays his tee shot on the sixth hole during the final round of the 2026 U.S. Adaptive Open.<\/p>\n

In Wednesday\u2019s trophy ceremony, Popert made a point to recognise Seated player Max Togisala. The Ogden, Utah, resident shot 67 on Wednesday, tying his own record in the event, and finished T-3 in the overall competition while capturing the Seated championship for a fourth time.<\/p>\n

Kim Moore, 45, was for the third time the top overall women\u2019s player by shooting three 76s. She was born with a clubbed left foot and without a right foot, eventually undergoing a below-the-knee amputation on her right leg. That didn\u2019t prevent Moore from being a top-10 player in NCAA Division II at the University of Indianapolis. She\u2019s a PGA teaching pro now.<\/p>\n

\"Kim<\/p>\n

[Photo: Kathryn Riley] Kim Moore reacts after sinking her putt on the 17th hole during the final round of the 2026 U.S. Adaptive Open.<\/p>\n

In the other men\u2019s categories, the winners were Brendan Lawlor, Short Stature (seven under); Justin Carlock, Upper Limb (nine under); Kiefer Jones, Vision (three over); Jordan Thomas, Multiple Limb Amputee (five over).<\/p>\n

On the women\u2019s side, the champions were Bailey Bush, Coordination (18 over); Sunyoung Kim, Intellectual (18 over); Kim Veldman, Multiple Limb Amputee (47 over); Annie Hayes, Seated (53 over); Sophia Howard, Upper Limb (37 over); Amanda Cunha, Vision (24 over).<\/p>\n

After the first two years at the Pinehurst Resort, one year at Sand Creek Station in Newton, Kansas, and two years at Woodmont, the tournament moves to the Northwest for two years beginning in 2027, with the Sunriver Resort outside of Bend, Oregon, as the host.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Logan Whitton] Australia\u2019s Lachlan Wood has successfully defended his Lower Limb Impairment title at the 5th US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[364967,4225,64,63,370524,755,11771,370525,370526,371906,85,370527,11773],"class_list":["post-788269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-adaptive-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-g4d-tour","tag-golf","tag-kim-moore","tag-kipp-popert","tag-lachlan-wood","tag-max-togisala","tag-sports","tag-us-adaptive-open","tag-woodmont-country-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}