West Australian Hannah Green will tee it up at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Troon on Thursday, evening Australian, time knowing she is a genuine chance of capturing her second Major championship.
The 23-year-old, who became only the third Australian woman in history to win a Major championship when winning the 2019 KPMG Championship looked confident in her pre-tournament media conference on Tuesday, adding she was heading home to watch Henrik Stenson’s win in The Open Championship in 2016 and that she was “hoping to make some of my own history here”.
Green stature and confidence has been transformed over the past year since her major win and also crucially after her second win on the LPGA Tour in September 2019, Â when she again led wire to wire to capture the Safeway Classic in Portland.
With this win, Green proved herself and also to the watching world that she was not just a one-hit-wonder as has been the case for several Major champions historically.
The world No.20 comes into the event after a solid week at the Ladies Scottish Open last week where she finished in a tie for 16th place, her first tournament since the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open in February.
Green said that every club in the bag would be required at some point during the tournament, “I think we’ll actually be playing a lot of clubs in the bag. Some courses we play, we’re only hitting wedges or only hitting long irons, but I think there will be quite the variety this week. I think just being on top of that.”
Green also said strategy from the tee was key, “I think definitely off the tee, you’ve got to be sometimes aggressive but sometimes safe. I think some holes you can get away with it but others you might have to put a little bit more into it and take a riskier shot.”
Avoiding Royal Troon’s penal pot bunkers would be crucial this week Green said, “There’s obviously a lot more pot bunkers here, so I think just making sure you can control where you mis-hit it, where your second shots or your third shots are going to be, that will be the person – whoever puts themselves in the best positions to make par will be ultimately the winner at the end of the week.”
Green will be joined in the field by eight of her Aussie compatriots; Minjee Lee, Su Oh, Katherine Kirk, Sarah Jane Smith, Whitney Hillier, Sarah Kemp, Steph Kyriacou and amateur Gabriela Ruffels.
Despite being Australia’s highest-ranked player at 8 in the Rolex Women’s World rankings, Lee is still searching for that elusive major championship. The 24-year-old has been in good form so far in 2020 and will be looking to get off to a solid start to put her in contention.
With bad weather forecast for the first two rounds, getting through the first 36 holes will be crucial – heavy rain and high winds are predicted for both days with wind gusts in excess of 65KPH expected early in round two.
With the vast majority of the leading Korean players choosing to stay at home and compete on the KLPGA Tour rather than travelling to Scotland to compete this week, the Australian contingent may never have a better chance to add their name to the prestigious AIG Women’s Open trophy.
The AIG Women’s Open will be played over 72 holes from August 20-23 with 144 of the world’s leading players on show competing for their share of the $US4.5million prizemoney on offer. There will be a cut to the leading 65 players and ties after 36 holes.
The Royal Troon course will be played at a distance of 6,649 yards (6,080 metres) with a par of 71.
Australian player tee-times (GMT)
7:58am Minjee Lee, Azahara Munoz, Amy Yang (Rd 2 time 12:38 pm)
8:20am Hannah Green, Esther Henseleit, Brittany Altomare (Rd 2 time 1:00 pm)
9:20am Sarah-Jane Smith, Christie Kerr, In Gee Chun (Rd 2 time 2:00 pm)
9:31am Gabriela Ruffels (a), Catriona Matthew, Angela Stanford (Rd 2 time 2:11 pm)
9:53am Sarah Kemp, Andrea Lee, Manon De Roey (Rd 2 time 2:33 pm)
10:26am Stephanie Kyriacou, Felicity Johnson, Caroline Inglis (Rd 2 time 3:06 pm)
11:32am Whitney Hillier, Charlotte Thompson, Maria Fernandez-Torres (Rd 2 time 6:32 am)
12:05pm Su Oh, Morgan Pressel, Carlota Ciganda (Rd 2 time 7:25 am)
2:00pm Katherine Kirk, Jasmine Suwannapura, Sandra Gal (Rd 2 time 9:20 am)
Australian viewers can watch all of the action live on FoxSports Channel 503 from 7:30 pm Thursday, August 20 2020
Click HERE for a full list of pairings and live scoring.
