HANNAH GREEN 2019 Was a Great Celebration for All Those Involved in Women’s Golf in Australia! Story by Karen Lunn • Image courtesy ALPG
If you are not aware that West Australian Hannah Green became the first Australian woman to win a major championship since Karrie Webb won the ANA Inspiration thirteen years ago, it is time to get out from under that rock and celebrate one of the most popular wins on the LPGA tour in recent memory!
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annah’s win at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in June was incredibly her first on the US LPGA Tour, and created headlines across Australia, coming on the same day that tennis star Ash Barty became the world’s best player and surfer Sally Fitzgibbons also regained her number 1 world ranking.
golfing superstar to look up to and aspire to be!
Watching those final holes of the last round I am sure were torture for all of Hannah’s family, friends and supporters, and I was one of many I am sure who didn’t want to get ahead of myself and think that Hannah could actually win the tournament. I couldn’t, it would just be too disappointing if she didn’t win! It is honestly I have been involved in professional sport now for almost 35 years, the most nervous I have been watching anyone play, apart from and I have never seen women athletes make both the front and when my sister Mardi finished third in this event back in 1999. back pages of national newspapers, appear on the nightly news To be honest, the way Hannah kept her composure over the across all of the 5 major free-to-air channels and make headlines course of the week was really incredible given the intense cauldron on international websites such as ESPN and BBC Sports. of pressure she had suddenly found herself in. The American To put Hannah’s win into true context, the only other Australian commentators really didn’t give her a chance of winning, women to win major championships are Jan Stephenson and constantly referencing the fact that Hannah had not won on the Karrie, who are of course legends of our sport in Australia. LPGA Tour as yet, and that all she had to draw on in terms of While Karrie is winding down her playing schedule and only experience were her three wins in her rookie year on the Symetra competing part-time, we really needed one of our younger Tour and her times playing in the final group at her National stars to step up to the plate. And step up is what Hannah Open. For them to discount any tournament win was crazy in my did, holding her nerve making a par putt from just inside two opinion, for Hannah that first win on the Symetra Tour and her metres at Hazeltine National Golf Club for a one-shot victory other two wins would have been equally important to her at that over former world number 1 and defending champion, Korean time as the occasion she found herself in at Hazeltine National superstar Sung Hyun Park. It is absolutely wonderful for golf Golf Club on Sunday afternoon on June 23rd 2019 needing a par in Australia that young girls and women now have a relevant to win the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
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Ladies GOLF Summer/Autumn 2019/20 • ISSUE 26
www.ladiesgolfmagazine.com.au
