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Hannah Green has been rewarded for her consistent form by a ranking for posterity … she is now the top-ranked Australian in the world, edging Minjee Lee.
Since the inception of the women’s world rankings in 2006 only Karrie Webb (for nine straight years) and Lee (since 2015) have held the top slot among Australians, but Green this week joined that pair as holding the top spot.
Her world ranking jumped one spot to No. 14 in this week’s list after she finished third in the Mediheal Championship in San Francisco, closing with a 66. Lee finished off the pace and dipped one spot to No. 15, meaning that Green is now the No. 1 ranked Aussie.
The top-ranked Australian man is Cameron Smith at No. 28.
Green, 24, has had two third-place finishes this year as she prepares to take on the season’s next major — the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship — in nine days’ time.
Two years ago she became just the third Australian woman — behind Webb and Jan Stephenson — to win a major, and her ranking has risen steadily since.
Brisbane’s Tim Hart has expressed his desire to take his red-hot Adidas Pro-Am Series form to the United States later this year after recording his fifth win in his past six starts at the Lunar Mining Emerald Pro-Am at Emerald Golf Club on Sunday.
Third in the Glencore Oaky Creek Coal Pro-Am on Friday, Hart began the second round in Emerald two shots behind overnight leader Gavin Fairfax but took little time to reduce the deficit.
Starting his round on the 10th hole, Hart burst out of the blocks by reeling off five birdies in his first seven holes to take a share of the lead alongside fellow Queenslander Peter Martin.
Back-to-back bogeys to close out his front nine stalled the birdie machine temporarily but three more on his inward nine completed his round of 6-under 64 and a two-round total of 10-under.
It was enough to finish one stroke clear of Martin (64) with Shae Wools-Cobb a further shot back in outright third after he too shot 64 on Sunday.
A prolific pro-am winner in recent years, Hart has been working hard with coach Richard Woodhouse to transfer his results in the shorter events into four-round success and believes he is now finally ready to take his game to the world.
“I am working towards playing in the US later in the year and these recent results are giving me the confidence I need before I go over,” Hart said.
“I have good memories playing up here and I just drew on those memories today to get me over the line.”
Winner of the Hidden Valley Whitsundays North Queensland Series, Hart now takes a 12-shot lead in the Onsite Rental Group Mining Towns Series with two events remaining.
The production line of outstanding talent continues out of Western Australia with amateur Haydn Barron recording his first win in a professional event at the two-day Mitchell and Brown Spalding Park Open at Spalding Park Golf Club in Geraldton on Sunday.
With veterans and accomplished PGA Tour of Australasia players eager to apply early pressure, Barron began Sunday’s second round with a three-stroke advantage and did enough to hold them at bay, closing with a 3-under par round of 69 and a two-round total of 9-under for a one-stroke victory.
Runner-up at the WA Open to fellow amateur Hayden Hopewell late last year, Barron continues to build an impressive resume as he considers the possibility of joining the professional ranks.
With the Spalding Park Golf Club presented in impeccable fashion and weather to match a charge was bound to come from somewhere and two players in particular ensured Barron had to work to the end.
Kwinana Pro-Am winner Andrew Kelly peeled off five birdies in his final 10 holes in a round of 5-under 67 to reach 8-under for the 36-holes while the round of the day came from part-time professional Stephen Dartnall.
Like Kelly, the 2016 WA PGA champion did the majority of his best work on the back nine, making the turn in 2-under and adding further birdies at 10, 11, 15 and 17 to shoot 6-under 66 and earn outright third position.
Former Spalding Park Open winner Dean Alaban added a second straight round of 2-under 70 to earn a share of fourth alongside Simon Houston who had an eagle, six birdies, a bogey and a double-bogey in a wildly fluctuating round of 5-under 67.
The next Adidas Pro-Am Series event scheduled for Western Australia is the Rio Tinto Karratha Pro-Am at Karratha Country Club on Thursday.
A leg injury that almost forced his withdrawal from the tournament proved to be no impediment to Brisbane’s Gavin Fairfax as he edged one stroke clear after the opening round of the Lunar Mining Emerald Pro-Am at Emerald Golf Club on Saturday.
The third event in the Onsite Rental Group Mining Towns Series attracted a field bursting with accomplished PGA Tour of Australasia regulars but it was Fairfax who produced a gem of a round on day one to take the lead into Sunday’s final round.
An Adidas Pro-Am Series winner at Redland Bay in April, Fairfax was third at the Moranbah Pro-Am a week ago but a troublesome leg injury gave the 32-year-old cause to consider not teeing it up at all on the eve of the tournament.
Thankfully for Fairfax, a round of 6-under 64 consisting of seven birdies and a lone bogey meant that he could nurse his injured leg all the way to the 18th hole.
“I just tried to take it easy out there today,” Fairfax explained.
“Thankfully I hit the ball straight so I didn’t have to walk as far which was good.
“The greens are very similar to what I play on back home in Brisbane so I felt comfortable around the greens today.”
An eagle at the 538-metre par-5 13th hole was the highlight of Aaron Wilkin’s opening round of 5-under 67 to sit in outright second position with current Onsite Rental Group Mining Towns Series leader Tim Hart a further shot back on 4-under 66 to be solo third with a day to play.
Glencore Oaky Creek Coal Pro-Am winner James Grierson is in position for a second straight win after a round of 3-under 67 to be part of a four-way tie for fourth alongside Lucas Higgins, Peter Martin and Nathan Barbieri.
Round 2 commences at 7am on Sunday morning with Fairfax to tee off at 12.15pm from the first tee.
Two-time champion Daniel Fox has turned to mental coach Sean Lynch in the hope of rediscovering a winning mindset at the Mitchell and Brown Spalding Park Open in Geraldton this weekend.
Winner in 2019 by one-stroke in what has been a 54-hole event in the past, Fox has this week spent time thinking back to his victory in 2012 and the mental approach he and Lynch adopted before finding success at Spalding Park Golf Club.
Conceding that sporadic tournament play since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen some bad habits resurface with regards to his mental approach to the game, Fox hopes to use the successes of the past to rediscover his mojo.
“I’d been struggling to get some things happening on the course and then the start of that week things started to really click,” Fox recalled of his 2012 triumph.
“I’d been working with Sean Lynch and just started on the medication for ADHD and all of a sudden all of the mental stuff we’d been working on just clicked.
“I’ve slipped back into some really bad habits mentally and I haven’t been disciplined enough and I haven’t been practising because there hasn’t been anything to play in.
“It’s a bad thing for me if I get out of my routine and it feels like we’ve been out of the routine since March of last year.
“I had a chat with Sean again this week. I’ve been having a few issues and asked him if there were any side effects from the medication but he said I’ve got bad habits and always had them which is why it’s important for me to continue to practise that mental stuff, and I’d let that go.”
Drawn to play with South West Open champion Brady Watt in the opening round, Fox will again have to best a strong field to record a third Spalding Park Open victory.
The 44-year-old warned though that not only does the golf course suit him but there are higher powers who may have contributed to his strong results in the past.
“It’s always treated me really well and if things have needed to go my way they have done,” said Fox.
“It feels like I’m gifted a few things here by the golf gods or whoever.
“It’s a golf course where you have to really position your ball, keep your ball below the hole because the greens are usually pretty quick and that stuff feeds into my preferred way of playing the game.
“This is the type of course where you build momentum slowly. You can get on a run here and have five or six birdies in the space of seven or eight holes.
“If you par the rest that’s fine but if you’re making bogeys or slip up and make a double there’s a residual effect of making a mistake that can last a hole or two.
“If you start getting a bit too cavalier with your lines and stuff like that you’ll get caught out.
“If I get hot with the putter – which I tend to do around here – then I can get to 5 or 6-under without taking too many risks.
“The golf course sets up great for me and I’ve known Byron Clarkson the GM and Head Professional since we played State Schoolboys together.
“His whole family is involved and it’s just such a great family atmosphere and event. They do everything they can to make the event enjoyable.
“When you go to events where you feel like you’re relaxed and you can concentrate on what you’re doing, it’s got a lot of things going for it.”
Former representative rugby player James Grierson has taken a significant step in establishing his professional golf credentials with a breakthrough win at the Glencore Oaky Creek Coal Pro-Am at Tieri Country Club.
The second event in the Onsite Rental Group Mining Towns Series being played in Central Queensland, Grierson and fellow New South Welshman Jay Mackenzie started the second round locked together and went toe-to-toe over the opening nine holes.
Backing up from their opening rounds of 6-under 66, the pair traded birdies over the opening holes but after making the turn two shots in front Grierson put the hammer down on his way to the clubhouse.
A birdie at the 318-metre par-4 13th was followed by an eagle at the par-5 15th, further birdies at 16 and 18 resulting in a round of 7-under 65 and a commanding four-stroke victory, his first since turning professional in 2019.
“This will just give me the confidence to know that I can compete with the bigger name players,” said Grierson, who grew up in Forbes in Central West NSW and represented Country NSW.
“I grew up on a course like this so I felt comfortable playing around here.”
Named the Forbes Sportsperson of the Year in 2011 for his exploits in golf and rugby league, Grierson was 26 when he turned professional and has proven in recent PGA Tour of Australasia events that he has the game to make a career out of golf.
He was top 25 at the Moonah Links PGA Classic and TPS Sydney at Bonnie Doon and then finished tied for 19th at the ISUZU Queensland Open, this victory providing an important confidence boost so early in his career.
Grierson’s win also sees him jump up to third place in the Onsite Rental Group Mining Towns Series behind Mackenzie and series leader Tim Hart, who finished in a tie for third with Douglas Klein and PGA Associate member Harrison Wills at 10-under as he chased a fifth-straight Adidas Pro-Am Series.
The next event in the Adidas Pro-Am Series is the Emerald Pro-Am starting Saturday at Emerald Golf Club.
An extraordinary front nine highlighted by an albatross at the par-5 eighth has propelled Sanctuary Cove’s Mitchell Smith to a runaway nine-stroke victory at the GOLFMATE NSW/ACT PGA State Associate Championship.
Seeking to complete a wire-to-wire win at Moruya Golf Club on the New South Wales South Coast, Smith began the fourth and final round with a three-shot buffer, a lead that was reduced to two when Jackson Jubelin (Palm Meadows) opened his round with a birdie.
But after pars at his opening two holes Smith then set about separating himself from the rest of the field, making three straight birdies from the third hole and then holing his second shot from close to 200 metres out at the 468-metre par-5 eighth.
After a front-nine of 6-under 30 and with the chasing pack kept at bay, Smith made 10 pars in succession to complete a round of 6-under 65 – the best of the week – and record a dominant victory with a four-round total of 7-under.
A round of 1-under par 70 was enough for Goulburn’s Luke Humphries to claim outright second at 2-over par with Beau McDonald from Hawks Nest Golf Club finishing at 3-over par after also completing the final round in 1-under 70.
TOURNAMENT RAFFLE RESULTS
1st Place – Graeme Fairchild (1 set of Titleist T200 T-Series Steel Irons *Custom Fitted*)
2nd Place – Phil Chesham (1 Scotty Cameron Putter)
3rd Place – Mark McDougall (1 Riverside Oaks Stay & Play Package for two; including 2 rounds of golf with motorised cart plus 1 nights’ accommodation in a Deluxe Room with Breakfast)
4th Place – Jordan Peters (1 Mid-Week round of golf for 4 including Motorised Carts at Riverside Oaks Golf Resort)
5th Place – Ian Anlezark (1 Titleist Stand Bag)
6th Place – Greg Kable (1 Pair of Footjoy MyJoys)
Where Tim Hart has come from, where he is right now and where he hopes to be in the future are three very different places.
Hart is currently riding a four-event Adidas Pro-Am Series hot streak and returns to Tieri Country Club in Queensland’s Central Highlands region on Thursday as defending champion for the two-day Oaky Creek Coal Tieri Pro-Am.
It’s the stage where the 32-year-old has been dominant for the past two years but he and coach Richard Woodhouse have devised a plan that will take Hart from Tieri in 2021 to the United States within the next 12 months.
Talent has never been Hart’s issue but with a settled personal life and a greater intensity in his application to his game, according to Woodhouse, the timing is now right.
“Players all develop at different rates and mature at different rates as well,” explains Woodhouse, the 2020 PGA National Coach of the Year.
“Tim has always been an incredibly highly-skilled player and athlete and he’s now at a time in his life where he actually owns that a little bit more.
“He now understands that to take the game to the tour level on a repeatable week-in, week-out basis he needs to make himself feel more uncomfortable and put himself in those uncomfortable environments.
“Pro-am golf is really comfortable for him. He knows he can turn up every round and beat everybody.
“He’s had stretches where he’s done stuff that nobody else does in terms of shooting the scores that he produces.
“He’s confident and competent in his ability; the next key is to become competent enough to take that confidence over to an uncomfortable environment.”
How dominant has Hart been on the pro-am scene in the past two years? Consider that he has been the outright or joint winner in 27 pro-ams since February 2019, all the morr remarkable given that he went five months without playing during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020.
His highest world ranking of 657 was achieved in March 2016 and over the years there have been glimpses of Hart transferring his pro-am form to top tier PGA Tour of Australasia tournaments.
In 2016 he finished inside the top three at the Queensland, Victorian and NT PGA championships and earlier this year he was top 20 at the Gippsland Super 6, Vic PGA and TPS Sydney events, rounding out a strong period of play with a tie for seventh at the Golf Challenge NSW Open.
Woodhouse has known for eight years that something special lies within Hart and is more confident than ever that we are about to see the best of it.
“He’s more determined right now than any other time I’ve seen him in his golf career,” says Woodhouse, whose stable also includes Brett Rankin, Daniel Nisbet, Chris Wood and Becky Kay.
“Tim has always been told he’s very good and that he should be winning at a higher level and that can sometimes play on the mind of a player.
“As you get older you mature and you start to discover the best version of yourself. Tim now knows he needs to put more time and more work in to become more competent at the skills he possesses and the areas he’s perhaps not at the standard that he wants to be.
“Like any young players there are always some hurdles that get in the way, whether that be personal, financial or perhaps injuries.
“That’s the beauty of golf. Every player is on their own journey and Tim is in a really good place with his personal well-being right now.
“He now knows more than ever what he wants to achieve.
“And he knows the timeline is right for him right now.”
Aussie pair Minjee Lee and Hannah Green won’t feature but a final round showdown between American Lexi Thompson and Filipino Yuka Saso looms at the US Women’s Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.
Only six players were able to break par as the Lake Course’s thick rough and slick greens once again put the planet’s best women players’ games to the test, Thompson surging to the 54-hole lead with a brilliant 5-under par round of 66.
At 7-under par she will start the final day one stroke clear of the sweet-swinging Saso who fought back late with a birdie at the par-5 17th only to drop a shot at the last to post a third round of even par 71 to sit one back at 6-under.
Runner-up in 2019, Thompson will start her Sunday pursuit of history four shots clear of amateur sensation Megha Ganne and 2019 US Women’s Open champion Jeongeun Lee6 with 2012 Women’s PGA champion Shanshan Feng a shot further back in outright fifth position.
Bogeys at the second and third holes were not how Minjee Lee hoped to begin her third round and it remained a struggle to the very end, a double-bogey at the par-5 17th contributing to a 6-over 77 to sit 10-over and tied for 55th with one round to play.
Fellow West Australian Hannah Green also fell back in the pack on Saturday. The 24-year-old fought hard to make the turn at 1-over 36 but a double-bogey at the par-4 10th and bogeys at 12, 13, 15 and 18 saw Green sign for a 7-over 78 to be 13-over through three rounds.
Fourteen years since she stunned the golf world by qualifying to play in the 2007 US Women’s Open at just 12 years of age, Thompson is attributing her position as 54-hole leader to a change of mindset that is helping her to deal with whatever tough breaks such a championship invariably throws at every player in the field.
“Any shot that got a bad bounce that went in the rough or the certain lies that you just have to pitch out, normally I would be, like, Oh my gosh, this is awful, this is a terrible lie, I’ve got to wedge it out now,” said Thompson after a bogey-free round that was her best in 14 appearances in the championship.
“It’s gotten to where it’s like, OK, I can pitch it out, wedge it up, give myself a par opportunity. And if I make bogey, I’ll move on to the next hole and give myself a birdie opportunity on the next.
“I just realised that I needed to change my mindset. It was only hurting me. Obviously I needed to work on some technical things in my game and everything, but the mental side was really getting to me.
“I was just taking it way too seriously and thinking that Lexi depended on my score. It’s really hard for me to not think that, but I just got into a state, I’m going to hit bad shots, and it is what it is. I can manage to get up-and-down or do what I can.”
A two-time winner on the Japan Ladies Golf Tour and the 36-hole leader at the Lotte Championship in April, Saso says that despite her relative inexperience she will endeavour to remain patient in her pursuit of what would be a historic victory for the Philippines.
“I’m really thankful and happy that there’s so many people cheering for me, but that doesn’t really go into my head. I’m just so focused on what I have to do now,” said the 19-year-old who is playing in her first tournament with galleries as a professional.
“I’ve learned so much last year and this year. I played in so many good tournaments and I’ve been having a great chance playing with the great players, seeing them play, being so patient, trusting on what they do.
“I’ve learned from that so I’m just going to stay patient and trust the process.”
Former junior golf combatants and practice round partners earlier this week, Ganne will join Saso and Thompson in the final group threesome and sees no reason why she can’t put herself in position to cause a major boilover.
“You can’t really come into a tournament expecting to play well if you don’t deep down know that you’ve got a shot to win it,” said Ganne, a 17-year-old high school junior from New Jersey.
“I guarantee you all 156 people in this field have thought about winning this championship and they just don’t say it because they want to seem humble.
“But, yeah, it’s been down there and hopefully I have a chance tomorrow.”
Minjee Lee and Hannah Green are left to fly the Aussie flag at the US Women’s Open this weekend – but it’s a long way from prominent at halfway.
Lee uncharacteristically mustered just one birdie on the Olympic Club’s testing Lake Course in San Francisco, but hung tough to card a second consecutive two-over-par 73 to sit four over.
Fellow West Australian Hannah Green endured a bit of everything in round two, including two double-bogeys in cold conditions.
But her 75 left her right on the cut line at six over, putting her in the second group out tomorrow on day three.
As bleak as that might sound, though, she’s still just 12 shots from the lead held by young Filipino Yuka Saso, a non-member of the LPGA Tour in just her second major championship.
Saso, 19, followed her first-round 69 with a brilliant four-under 67, tied for the second-lowest round of the day, with six birdies and two bogeys to reach six under.
Saso only hit six fairways, but used her strength to her advantage, powering out of the tall grass with a very simple mentality.
“If I go in the rough, my mindset is just to go for the fairway,” said Saso, who’s had just 53 putts through two rounds.
“It’s really long and like sticky, so yeah, it’s really hard to get on (the green) from it. But yeah, I’m glad that I’m a little bit good out of it.”
A Saso victory, while a long way from sealed, would mark the third consecutive year with a non-member taking a major title, following A Lim Kim (2020 US Women’s Open), Sophia Popov (2020 AIG Women’s Open) and Hinako Shibuno (2019 AIG Women’s Open).
Jeongeun Lee6, Korea’s 2019 US Women’s Open champ, enjoyed a late flurry of birdies at 15, 16 and 17 to earn solo second at five under with her own 67, one behind the day’s best round of American youngster Sarah Burnham.
Lee6 is followed by sixth-year LPGA Tour player Megan Khang and amateur Megha Ganne in a tie for third at four under.
Ganne, a 17-year-old high school student who was tied for the lead after 18 holes, carded an even-par 71 on Friday and is revelling in her new-found spotlight, even getting a Twitter shoutout from the governor of her native New Jersey.
“I wish every event I had a gallery watching me because it just makes me play better, I think,” said Ganne. “And I love being in the spotlight, so it’s been really fun.”
With a second-round 69, Inbee Park set the championship record for the most sub-par rounds with 25. She had previously been tied for first with two other greats of the game in Beth Daniel and Betsy King.
Park, the reigning Women’s Australian Open and Olympic champion, moves to the weekend at two under, tied for seventh with fellow major champions Lexi Thompson and Ariya Jutanguarn.
“There aren’t that many holes that I can actually make a birdie on this golf course,” said Park, who won the US Women’s Open in 2008 and 2013.
“I really tried to take advantage of the par-fives when I hit the short irons, which I did.”
The other Aussies in the field couldn’t any momentum.
Sarah Jane Smith had two late birdies to close at +10, alongside fellow Queenslander and debutant amateur Emily Mahar who impressively made three birdies today en route to a 74.
New South Welshwoman Sarah Kemp couldn’t maintain her recent exemplary form and battled to a 79 and +15 total.
A Lim Kim finished at seven over and became the first defending champion to miss the cut since Sung Hyun Park in 2018.
Other notables who did not reach the weekend include U.S. Women’s Open champions Park (+8), Paula Creamer (+9), Brittany Lang (+9), Cristie Kerr (+10) and Michelle Wie West (+12), as well as Shibuno (+7) and Popov (+8).
Nelly Korda shot +11 to head home early, while her sister Jessica Korda advanced to the final two rounds at +4, tied for 36th.
LEADERBOARD
