World No.5 Hannah Green is taking a leaf out of fellow West Australian Min Woo Lee by incorporating statistics into her assault on the majors as one of the favourites at the Chevron Championship, the first women’s major of the year.
Green spearheads a healthy Australian contingent of seven at the Chevron Championship, which gets underway Thursday (late Thursday night AEST) in the third edition held at The Club at Carlton Woods outside Houston. Women’s golf stars such as Green and fellow Australian Minjee Lee, Nelly Korda, Jeeno Thitikul and New Zealand’s Lydia Ko are the big names among 132 players vying for a $US8 million purse and the coveted Dinah Shore Trophy.Â
It will be the first major Green has played with analytics as part of her approach, after heeding the advice of supercoach Ritchie Smith. Smith compelled another one of his star students, Min Woo, to adopt a stats-driven approach to the DP World and PGA Tours and it paid off when the social media star earned a maiden pro win in the US at the recent Houston Open.
“Min Woo and Ritchie have been using UpGame (a stats portal by TrackMan) for a few years now,” Green told Australian reporters via phone from the US on Tuesday. “Ritchie has always wanted me to use stats I’ve quite frankly been too lazy .. I now do that after every round. Being a top 10 player in the world, I probably should have done it already. It’s too early to see any trends but hopefully later I’ll be able to see if I have any patterns.”
Green missed the cut at the Chevron the past two years but hopes a top-10 result at last week’s JM Eagle LA Championship on the regular LPGA Tour will help her rekindle a career-best T-8 from the 2022 edition of the Chevron.
“It was nice to have a top 10 finish with a nice Sunday round; usually I don’t play the week before the Chevron so hopefully I can use the form from last week heading into this week,” Green said. “I hit a lot of greens last week, but the greens were quite tricky and there weren’t a lot of flat or straight putts. I drove the ball well and hopefully I can take take the consistency I’ve had this year into Chevron.”
Green, whose first career major came early in her career at the 2019 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, has enjoyed a resurgence the past two years. She bagged four wins on the regular LPGA Tour since April 2023, catapulting her to the top five in the world. But the 28-year-old hasn’t been able to replicate those results in the five women’s majors each year, with no top 10s on the big stage since a pair of them in 2022 at the Chevron and the Women’s PGA.
“The last three of four years … I never get off to a good start (in majors),” Green said when asked to pinpoint why. “I want to keep myself in it going into the weekend (rounds at majors). Sometimes I put too much pressure on myself. I’m coming in to this major with one of the best rankings I’ve ever had. There are probably more expectations from other people, but I have to make sure I’m not putting too much pressure on myself. I want to be in contention in majors more. I want more trophies in my cabinet but I don’t want (to overthink it).”
Green and Lee were Australian’s women’s golf team in Paris last year, where Green could have forced a bronze medal playoff with a birdie on the last at Le National but she settled for a T-4. Still, contending in that elite field won by Ko is a source of motivation for this week’s Chevron.
“We already have five majors and we treated Olympics like a sixth,” Greens said. “It was quite heartbreaking to think if I had birdied the last I could have been on the podium but I’m hoping to get off to a better start (at Chevron).”
Green owns three top-16 results but also three missed cuts at the Chevron. “(Carlton Woods is a relatively) new venue in Houston and hopefully I can wipe the bad memories (from her inconsistent results at the Chevron),” Green said.
The Australian contingent in Houston is bolstered by Gabi Ruffels, Grace Kim, Steph Kyriacou, Hira Naveed, and Cassie Porter, while tournament alternates (reserves) include fellow Australians Sarah Kemp, Karis Davidson, Robyn Choi and Su Oh.
