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Best of 2024: Hannah Green’s golden run


When Hannah Green began her 2024 campaign, breaking into the world top 10 was a goal she was desperate to tick off.

With a three-win season on the LPGA Tour – a feat not achieved by an Australian since Karrie Webb in 2006 – there were times this year when Green could lay claims to being the best player in the women’s game.

Granted, everyone played second fiddle to Nelly Korda’s seven-win season and Lydia Ko’s Paris gold medal at AIG Women’s Open title was a remarkable run in its own right but there was no question that Green was part of the conversation.

It took just two starts for the West Australian to record her first win of the year at the HSBC Women’s World Championship, storming home to edge France’s Celine Boutier.

She missed the cut unexpectedly at the Chevron Championship – the year’s first major – but bounced back a week later where she successfully defended her JM Eagle LA Championship title at Wilshire Country Club.

A head-to-head with Nelly Korda at the Mizuho Americas Open led to a playoff defeat at the hands of the world No.1, Green climbing to a career high of No.5 in the world and full of confidence headed to her second Olympic Games.

A slight stumble out of the blocks put the now 28-year-old on the back foot but she clawed her way back into medal contention over the following three days.

A hole-out for eagle at the par-4 17th in a back nine of 6-under in Round 3 put Green within four strokes of the medals heading into the final day. By the time she began the back nine in Round 4, she was in a tie for third and charging towards Australian Olympic history.

A wayward tee shot on 10 would lead to a double-bogey that would ultimately prove fatal, Green making par at the 72nd hole to finish one shot out of a medal playoff.

Green’s third win for the year came at the BMW Ladies Championship in Korea, making it successive Aussie wins after Minjee Lee’s victory in 2023, and was tied for sixth a week later at the Maybank Championship.

A second Greg Norman Medal at the PGA Awards was fitting reward for a season in which she finished sixth in the world ranking, seventh on the LPGA Tour Race to CME Globe standings and asserted her place as one of the dominant forces in women’s golf.

Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images


In May, Karl Vilips graduated after four years at Stanford University. In October, he wrapped up a 2025 PGA TOUR card.

In the professional golf of today, such an ascension is almost unheard of.

You are supposed to bide your time, pay your dues, do the hard yards on secondary tours and establish your own path to the highest echelons of the sport.

If you make it there at all.

The fact that Vilips was able to convert status on the PGA TOUR of Americas earned through the PGA TOUR U program into a PGA TOUR card inside five months is one of the more remarkable accomplishments of 2024.

That he was a child prodigy who has been seemingly on this path from the days he could first start walking makes Vilips’ story even more compelling.

With father Paul documenting his golfing development in Melbourne, Vilips came to public awareness with two US Kids Junior Golf Championship wins and a Callaway World Junior title.

After spending time in Perth, Vilips made the move to Florida to complete high school where his impressive golf credentials continued to build.

It made him a sought-after commodity by college golf programs, Vilips choosing to join Tiger Woods as a Stanford alumni where he closed out his college career with victory at the Pac-12 Championship.

That result saw Vilips finish 10th on the PGA TOUR U standings to begin his professional life with status on the PGA TOUR Americas.

After two starts on that tour he received a sponsor’s exemption to play on the Korn Ferry Tour.

He finished second in his second start there and won the Utah Championship in just his fifth tournament as a professional.

Those two results alone went a long way to Vilips’ finishing 19th on the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour Points List and earning Rookie of the Year honours.

Vilips returned home to Australia in November to play the ISPS HANDA Australian Open and will likely complete the whirlwind with his maiden start as a member of the PGA TOUR at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January.


As golf established its place within the Olympic family at Paris 2024, no person had a greater influence on the Australian team than PGA Professional Ritchie Smith.

As swimming coach Dean Boxall guided the fortunes of 10 athletes in the 44-person Australian swim team, Smith (pictured far left with Hannah Green, Minjee Lee, Min Woo Lee and physiotherapist Marty McInnes) had three of the four golfers who wore the green and gold at Le Golf National under his stewardship.

In the men’s competition, Min Woo Lee fought back after a 76 on day one to finish tied for 22nd, Minjee Lee was also tied for 22nd in her third Olympic appearance while Hannah Green finished one shot shy of a playoff for an Olympic medal.

The 27-year-old from Perth was outright third by the time she walked off the ninth green at 7-under par but hit her tee shot on 10 into the water left of the fairway and made double-bogey.

Green thought at that point that her medal hopes had vanished, yet as players around her rose and fell, she fought to stay in touch with the top three, ultimately finishing one shot shy of Australia’s first Olympic golf medal.

Green’s Olympic campaign was just part of a stellar season in 2024 that she and Smith plotted back in January.

Part of that process involved a putter change that turned good ball-striking weeks into victories.

There were three in total on the LPGA Tour in 2024, the last of which came on the same day that Smith was watching another of his players, Elvis Smylie, win the WA Open for his first professional victory.

As Green was named Greg Norman Medal winner for a second time at the PGA Awards in November, Smith was honoured as PGA National Coach of the Year – High Performance for a fourth time.

Five days later he was celebrating again as Smylie showed remarkable composure on the back nine at Royal Queensland Golf Club to win the BMW Australian PGA Championship.


It was fun to be a member of Ripper GC in 2024. Victorian Lucas Herbert joined for his first season of LIV Golf and throughout the season emerged as a talismanic presence within the team that also boasted captain Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman and Matt Jones.

On the back of Smith’s playoff defeat in the individual event, Ripper GC registered their first podium finish of the year in Hong Kong but it was on home turf where their season burst into life.

Individually, all four team members finished inside the top 20 at the completion of 54 holes, enough to force the first ever LIV Golf team playoff against the South African Stinger GC team.

Smith and Leishman represented the Rippers while Louis Oosthuizen and Dean Burmester squared off for the Stingers, scores counting for all four players on each hole.

After dodging a bullet on the first playoff hole, Leishman’s par and Smith’s bogey on the second extra hole sent the home crowd into a state of delirium.

Despite the extensive celebrations that followed, they backed that up by winning the team event at Singapore a week later and arrived at the season-ending team event in Dallas in the hunt to be crowned team champions.

Third in the standings entering the Team Championship Dallas, Ripper GC defeated Fireballs GC in the semi-finals thanks to individual wins by Herbert and Leishman and then won the final thanks to rounds of 4-under 68 from Smith, 3-under 69 from Herbert and rounds of 2-under 70 from both Jones and Leishman.

What happened after that remains a closely guarded secret within the four walls of Ripper GC.

Photo: David Cannon/Getty Images


When Adam Scott dropped out of the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking between the November Masters of 2020 and the 2021 Sentry Tournament of Champions, he was 40 years of age.

He’d won the Genesis Invitational less than 12 months earlier and a swing that makes grown men drool looked as fluid as ever, but time remains undefeated.

Yes, Jack Nicklaus won the 1986 Masters at 46 years of age and Vijay Singh rose to No.1 in the world for the first time at age 41 professional golf in the 21st century is very much a young man’s game.

You don’t get better after 40; it’s more a matter of who can delay the inevitable slide the longest.

Adam Scott playing his way back into the top 20 in the world at the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club deserved more fanfare.

As the golf year draws to its close, Scott remains embedded in the top 20; you have to go down to Justin Rose at No.46 in the world to find another 40-something inside the top 50.

To quote Ron Burgundy of ‘Anchorman’ fame, Scott’s season escalated quickly.

Top 10s at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic and WM Phoenix Open were a solid foundation yet in the lead-up to the US Open Scott’s streak of 91 consecutive majors was in danger as he hovered around 60th in the world.

He lost a playoff to Cam Davis at the US Open qualifier but was given a special exemption on the Monday to tee it up at Pinehurst No.2.

But it was a runner-up finish at the Genesis Scottish Open that sent Scott’s season into overdrive.

A tie for 10th at The Open Championship a week later was his first top-10 in a major since the 2019 US Open and then he played his way into the Tour Championship with a tie for 18th at the FedEx St Jude Championship and tie for second at the BMW Championship.

Having done enough to play his way into the DP World Tour Playoffs, Scott ended his year at the DP World Tour Championship where he finished third, his major streak set to reach 94 at the 2025 Masters.

Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images


Ultimately, it took Elvis Smylie three years to become an overnight sensation but the manner of his BMW Australian PGA Championship win at Royal Queensland was proof enough that this is no flash in the pan.

Paired with three-time champion Cameron Smith – whose scholarship he won just five years earlier – Smylie played like a seasoned campaigner and not the 22-year-old who has already seen the struggle that professional golf can be.

Having burst onto the scene as an 18-year-old who very nearly won in his first professional start in Sydney, Smylie saw the golf world open up to the promise of his potential.

Sponsor invites to play a dozen DP World Tour events didn’t yield a single dollar won, quests at Qualifying School also coming up agonisingly short.

But when he turned up to play the WA PGA Championship at Kalgoorlie in October, there was a confident air about Smylie.

Almost 12 months into working with WA-based coach Ritchie Smith, strength and conditioning coach Luke Mackey, physiotherapist Martin McInnes and mental coach Michael Lloyd, the Smylie puzzle suddenly looked completely assembled,

If not for a wayward tee shot on 18 he’d have had the outright lead through 54 holes at the WA PGA; a week later he tamed cyclonic winds at Mandurah Country Club to edge Jak Carter in a playoff to win the WA Open.

It was tangible proof to everyone – including himself – that he has what it takes to win, his composure under immense pressure at RQ a month later an exclamation point that has propelled him instantly onto the DP World Tour with what is effectively a two-year exemption.


It took an eagle at the 72nd hole to deny Stephanie Kyriacou victory at The Amundi Evian Championship in France.

That’s how close the New South Wales star came to joining the exclusive club of Australian major champions in an enthralling final round at Evian Resort Golf Club.

Leading by one through 54 holes, Kyriacou spent much of the final day engaged in a tug-of-war with American Lauren Coughlin.

Yet as the pair went toe-to-toe and Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit (63) posted 17-under in the clubhouse, it was Japan’s Ayaka Furue (65) who rode a hot putter over the final five holes to finish at 19-under and edge the Aussie by a shot.

Trailing Coughlin by three standing on the 14th tee, Furue dragged herself back into the mix with three straight birdies and then closed it out with an eagle at the 72nd hole, Kyriacou making birdie to claim outright second and her best finish in a major championship.

Read: https://www.golf.org.au/gallant-kyriacou-second-at-evian-championship/

As the back nine unfolded, Kyriacou was fighting to stay within range of Coughlin.

A steady stream of pars kept Kyriacou in contention until she joined Coughlin at 17-under with a silky pitch and birdie from six feet at the par-5 15th.

She took dead aim at the par-3 16th and converted from four feet to take the outright lead at 18-under, one clear of Furue as Coughlin dropped two back with her first bogey in 29 holes.

Kyriacou and Furue arrived at the 72nd tee tied with Tavatanakit at 17-under par.

https://twitter.com/GolfAust/status/1812473804628939122

Furue’s tee shot finished in the first cut just right of the fairway but Kyriacou was forced to lay up after missing in the deep rough left of the short grass.

There was an anxious moment as Furue’s second just cleared the water front of the green before settling 10 feet above the hole, sounding the death knell to Kyriacou’s major aspirations… for now.

As she continues to establish her presence on the LPGA Tour, it was a performance under pressure that confirmed Kyriacou has what it takes to convert the next opportunity that comes her way.

Photo: Olivier Chassignole/AFP via Getty Images


A dominant force on the senior amateur circuit domestically in 2023, Nadene Gole took her winning ways to the world in 2024.

Taking out all Australian state titles and then the Australian Senior Amateur title last year, the Victoria Golf Club member was the first Australian to win the R&A Senior Women’s Amateur Championship in July and then continued her trailblazing ways when she became the first Australian to claim the US Senior Women’s Amateur at Broadmoor Golf Club in Seattle.

Read: https://www.golf.org.au/gole-claims-randa-womens-senior-amateur-and-slice-of-history/

Facing 2022 champion Shelly Stouffer of Canada in the final, it was Gole who jumped out to a small early lead, taking a 1-up advantage with a par on the second hole.

Stouffer quickly levelled the match with a par on the third, but Gole responded by notching the first birdie of the day on the par-4 fourth to reclaim her advantage. A bogey from Stouffer on the seventh allowed Gole to stretch her lead to 2-up.

The match was all tied after ten holes, but after a birdie on the 12th hole to regain the lead, momentum would officially shift back to the Australian on the 13th, who followed up a tap-in par by Stouffer by pouring in an 18-foot slider for par to halve the hole.

Read: https://www.golf.org.au/gole-creates-history-at-the-us-senior-womens-amateur/

Hole wins on 14 and 15 would extend the lead to 3 up, the largest of the match, and one that would not be relinquished.


Kelsey Bennett has ended her year travelling the globe with just rewards by claiming playing rights on the Ladies European Tour (LET). Multiple Australians doing the same at the final stage of Asian Tour qualifying that concluded on the weekend.

Bennett spent the year chasing status through the European circuit’s feeder Tour the LET Access Series, where she won the Hauts de France Pas de Calais Golf Open in September to finish 10th on the Order of Merit.

Earning some LET starts via her finish on the Order of Merit, Bennett returned overseas for Qualifying School after contesting events at home, including the ISPS HANDA Australian Open, in the hope of securing full status and a more certain schedule in 2025.

Played over five rounds in Morrocco, players finishing inside the top-20 would earn status for next season, Bennett bouncing back from a third round of 76 with 67-69 on the final two days to share 19th and guaranteeing her place on the LET in 2025.

Fellow Australians Maddison Hinson-Tolchard (25th), Justice Bosio (57th) and Belinda Ji (101st) fell outside the top-20, while Kiwi Amelia Garvey finished fourth to earn her card on the Tour that will play three straight weeks in Australia starting at the 2025 Australian WPGA Championship held at Sanctuary Cove Golf and Country Club.

There was similar success at the final stage of Asian Tour Qualifying School in Thailand, where Jack Thompson finished in tied fourth and three of his compatriots claimed one of 35 cards available for the 2025 season.

A winner of the final stage two years ago, Thompson headed back to qualifying after playing the 2024 season in Asia and will be joined by the returning Todd Sinnott, who finished in tied 10th with new Asian Tour member Lawry Flynn from Queensland.

Queenslander Brett Rankin one shot ahead of the players earning the final spots with a closing 68 to be tied for 23rd on 11-under.

New Zealand’s Denzel Ieremia also earning status alongside Thompson, who managed four of five rounds in the 60s, including a closing 68.

“To get back is great. I would have liked to have finished today off a bit better, but at the end of the day I got my card back,” Thompson told the Asian Tour’s website.

“Everything’s just been really good. I’ve sort of ended the year playing decently, and I had eight days off just to relax before here because I just played so much. But I mean, it never really disappears like that, so yeah, I’m happy with that.”

On the DP World Tour, Daniel Gale was the lone Australian representative and flew the flag proudly with the new member finishing in a tie for 28th on 4-under-par at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open.


The adidas PGA Pro-Am Series wrapped up for 2024 with six players finishing tied at the top to head to the festive break with some extra spending money after the Stockland The Gables 2024 Pro-Am.

A field featuring multiple Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia players descended on Lynwood Country Club in Sydney’s west for the two day event where Dillon Hart, Christopher Wood, Josh Armstrong, Samuel Slater, Scott Arnold and James Conran emerged victorious.

Somewhat remarkably, none of the six eventual winners had shared the lead after Round 1, before finishing on a 36-hole total of 3-under 141, with Hart authoring the biggest second round swing by improving his score by five shots for a 68.

HOW THE WINNING ROUNDS UNFOLDED

In windy conditions with penalising rough punishing wayward driving and greens rolling 11-feet on the stimpmeter, it was about minimising mistakes, with all six winners still having their moments during the final round.

For Hart, he mixed five birdies with one bogey, his most important birdie coming at the par-3 17th having dropped a shot two holes earlier, while Wood got off to an up and down start with back-to-back birdies to start the round negated by a double bogey at the fifth. The Queenslander making three birdies on the back nine, including at the 18th to join the winning group.

Armstrong’s length off the tee would have felt like a weapon as he reached the closing stretches, with two par-5s in the last three holes, but the Concord Golf Club member could only manage pars having also bogeyed the 15th.

Queenslander Slater is another with prodigious length, and used it on his way five birdies in his first 10 holes, but the par-5 16th saw him go from 5-under with victory on his own in his sights back to 3-under.

Now spending 40 hours a week in a Pro Shop, Arnold saved his best for last to get a share of the spoils having matched every one of his three birdies with a bogey throughout the final day. Arnold birdieing the 18th for a second day in a row to join the large winners’ picture.

Conran also needed birdie at the last to reach 3-under and victory, with the New South Welshman coming home strongest of the winning six. Double bogey at the sixth was mixed with eight pars on the front nine before Conran made four birdies in seven holes to finish his competitive year.

WHAT THE WINNERS SAID

Scott Arnold: “I think the course in great nick, and it’s set up pretty well for sort of an event like this, so it is pretty scoreable. There was a bit of wind yesterday and a bit of wind today and the pins are a bit tricky so it sort of made scoring a bit tough but I’m really pleased with how I played considering I’m spending 40 hours a week in a shop now and not really doing any practise.”

Josh Armstrong: “Very ready for a break. I feel like I’ve been playing okay. It’s sort of been frustrating because I’ve been making a lot of silly decisions, but definitely a little bit of that yesterday. But I did that up a little today and played pretty solidly all day. I’ve got good memories here. I spend a lot of time out here. I always enjoyed coming back.”

James Conran: “I mean, Lynwood is always enjoyable to play. It’s always in pretty good condition. The greens are pretty true. It’s just been a bit of a bother with the wind the last two days and the heat, but the course presented itself pretty good.”

Dillon Hart: “Just found some form in my swing. Made an adjustment with the coach and yeah, started to find ball striking, which sort of led into some putting stuff that’s come off as well and starting to build a conference with it.”

Samuel Slater: “The big goal for me is actually getting a Tour category for next year. That’s the main thing I’ve been focusing on. So playing these Pro-Ams and playing well in Tour events as well. So hopefully we can get a couple more decent results on the board.”

Christopher Wood: “Definitely nice to have a win in the last event of the year. To be honest, the year’s been a bit slow, but it was nice to sort of play well the last couple of weeks and finish it off here with a win.”

LEADERBOARD RUNDOWN
T1      Dillon Hart    141
T1      Christopher Wood      141
T1      Samuel Slater              141
T1      Josh Armstrong          141
T1       Scott Arnold             141
T1       James Conran              141
T7       Joseph Owen           142
T7       Nathan Barbieri            142
T7       Andrew Richards         142

NEXT UP

The adidas PGA Pro-Am Series is now in its Christmas and New Year break and returns to action on January 3 at Harcourts Langwarrin Pro-Am @ Settlers Run.


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