Hannah Green won the KPMG Women's PGA Championship by won stroke from defending champion, Park Sung-hyun, becoming the first Australian woman to win a major in 13 years.
Hannah Green won the KPMG Women's PGA Championship at Hazeltine National by won stroke from defending champion, Park Sung-hyun, becoming the first Australian woman to win a major in 13 years.
Playing in just her seventh major, Green led the championship from start to finish and fittingly, the 22-year-old won it with an up-and-down out of the left greenside bunker on the final hole, making a 5-footer for par and a total nine-under 279 with the club that saved her time and time again.
Park, playing in the group up ahead, made an 18-foot birdie putt on No. 18 while Green watched from the fairway. She tugged her hybrid into the left bunker from 182 yards but hit a solid sand shot and then made the putt, the tears of joy that followed belying the calm with which she delivered the winning stroke.
“I'm pretty much speechless,” Green said, tears interrupting her sentences.. “I was really nervous the last five holes and just really -- I made a clutch putt and that was kind of got me through another one. To make the one on the last is really is surreal.”
Mel Reid closed with a 65 to finish at six-under-par 282 along with Nelly Korda in a tie for third. Lizette Salas and Danielle Kang were at 283. Mirim Lee was at 284 with Inbee Park and Hyo Joo Kim. So Yeon Ryu, Lydia Ko, Megan Khang and Ariya Jutanugarn, who started the final round one stroke behind Green but closed with a 77, were at 285.
Green rolled in a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 2 to double her advantage, made a great par save from the rough on No. 5 – rolling in a 10-foot putt – and pushed the lead to three strokes with a 4-foot birdie putt on No. 7. A bogey by Jutanugarn on No. 8 gave Green a four-stroke lead over her and Nelly Korda.
Walking step by step with Green was seven-time major winner and fellow Australian Karrie Webb, who patrolled the grounds outside the ropes with her two most-recent scholarship students who no doubt were dreaming that in the not-too-distant future they would be inside the ropes playing in this major. In 2015, Green was one of the Webb scholarship students walking outside the ropes at the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club.
But winning majors is not easy and if Green was not feeling the pressure, Webb was. “I’m starting to get nervous now,” Webb said after Green made bogeys on Nos. 9 and 11, slicing her lead to two strokes over Korda and Park. “I think we were more stressed that she was,” Webb said later. “Her maturity today was amazing.”
When Green drove into the thick rough left of No. 12 she could not pull another rabbit out of her hat, making her third bogey in four holes after making only three bogeys in the first three rounds. She made par on the par-3 13th hole then stepped to the 14th tee reeling a bit.
But, like Brooks Koekpa splitting the 15th fairway at Bethpage in the final round after making four consecutive bogeys on his way to winning the PGA Championship in May, Green found the center of the short grass on No. 14, steadying the ship. She knocked it on to 12 feet and, despite missing the birdie putt, walked off with a stress-free par.
She then split the fairway again on No. 15 for another easy par and after yet another perfect drive on the dangerous 16th hole, with water all down the right side, rolled in a 15-footer for a birdie that moved her two clear of Park.
“It's awesome,” said Green, whose mother was watching on TV at home. “ I've always wanted to win in front of an Aussie crowd. I felt even that's what it was like today. Anything to just be winning in majors the first event. I actually didn't feel too nervous the first few.. Obviously I heard Sung made the last one, knew I needed to make par. Didn't want to play that hole again. I'm really happy I made it.”
That set the stage for the dramatics on the 18th green – first Park rolling in her birdie putt and then Green making up-and-down from the bunker.
Now Green’s name is in the record book along side Jan Stephenson and Webb, who both also won the Women’s PGA. Green’s name joins those of Stephenson and Webb on the Women’s PGA trophy for one very good reason – she earned it.
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