Weekend Wrap: Hannah Green Wins At Wilshire
Notes on the Australian's impressive victory in L.A. Plus, Gooch gets his PGA invite and Masters runner-up Koepka bends the rules again.
Last week the women played what seemed like a major in rural Houston.
This week they played what felt like a major in the heart of Los Angeles.
Wilshire Country Club again delivered an intangible blend of firm, fast, thought-provoking design with an international leaderboard blessed by potential breakthrough stories. After 74 holes it was Australia’s Hannah Green who emerged from a three-player playoff to win the JM Eagle L.A. Championship.
Green’s third career LPGA Tour victory was her first since the 2019 Portland Classic to go along with her KPMG PGA Championship win earlier that year at Hazeltine National.
After two-putting for par on the second playoff hole, the frustrations of not winning in four years spilled out.
“It's been a long few years, and I played really well last year, but getting across the line has been really difficult,” Green said. “I'm really proud of myself for hanging in there because I really didn't think that I'd be in it with how I was playing and making so many putts. Yeah, I'm really happy, but the emotions are coming out.”
The 26-year-old from Perth said she and caddie Nate Blasko expected the difficulty of Wilshire to increase over the weekend. She emphasized patience over going low and should know: in three previous starts here she’s gone T14, T3 and second last year.
Green plodded along Sunday with pars on her first 14 holes before finally birdieing the reachable par 5 15th. After her iron shot at the par 3 18th failed to release like she’d hoped, Green managed to roll in a 25-footer to join the playoff with India’s Aditi Ashok and China’s Xiyu Lu. The pair playing in front of Green had already birdied the finisher to reach nine-under-par.
“I feel like this weekend played a lot different to the first couple days, so my caddie just said, stay patient,” Green said. “You always try and do that, but it's harder said than done. I'm just really proud for holing that putt in regulation on 18 and obviously the putt the last couple holes.”
With the win, Green earns $450,000 and moves her career earnings to $3,983,874.
Always a speedy and effortless looking player with one of the best looking swings in golf, Green has been battling frustration at her inability to return to the winner’s circle.
Early this week she spoke to Julie Amato of Elite Mindset who is available to players via a role with the LPGA Tour.
“I just wanted to pretty much chat to someone that I haven't spoken to before and just make sure that I'm not overthinking things.”
What she focused on: an issue in her post-shot routine.
You read that correctly.
“When I'm not playing well, I tend to carry my golf club, whatever club that may be, off the tee, second shot, third shot, and I'll almost walk with it in my hand to the green,” Green said. “So straight away I have to give it to my caddie because I don't do that when I hit a good shot; I give it to him straight away. Just training your brain to think differently.”
Green has long been aware of her tendency to hold onto the club after a poor shot. After a missed cut at last week’s Chevron she made the adjustment.
All of three LPGA wins have now come after missed cuts. But this one may be the most satisfying yet given her struggles and multiple close calls at Wilshire.
“I think this is honestly just as big as the first two.”
Storied Wilshire put up a nice fight once again in the JM Eagle L.A. Championship. The firm, fast and dense poa annua turned a nice shade of grey late each day. Throw in the tiny greens averaging 5,000 square feet and the classy old Norman Macbeth design provided ideal advance preparation for July’s U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach.
“It's difficult because I feel like on a golf course like this, if you attack more, you leave yourself putts above the pin, and then you have downhill putts,” said Nelly Korda, who finished two strokes out of the playoff. “But this is a tough golf course. You can get into a lot of trouble really, really fast.”
Green relished the weekend challenge provided by Wilshire and now has her sights set on majors at Baltusrol, Pebble Beach and Walton Heath.
“Not that I'll do things too differently because I want to keep winning and have moments like these where I'm talking to you guys after tournaments, but we're pretty fortunate for the venues we get to play. So I'm excited for them.”
Elsewhere…
Tony Finau held off Jon Rahm by three strokes to capture the Mexico Open, his second win this year. It’s his second win in the 2022-23 season.
Talor Gooch won the LIV stop in Singapore a week after winning the Adelaide event.
Stanford and it’s top player Michael Thorbjornsen won the Pac 12 Championship.