[Photos: Harry How]
Hannah Green has that winning feeling again. Duh, it’s Los Angeles.
The 29-year-old from Perth was six shots off the lead with eight holes to play on the final day and came roaring back to emerge from a three-way playoff and win the JM Eagle LA Championship at El Caballero Country Club. This is her third victory in this event in the past four years and her fourth win this year with two coming on the LPGA Tour and two at home in Australia.
RELATED: WPGA Championship 2026 – Hannah Green completes historic hat-trick
Green shot a final-round 68, playing the back nine at five-under, and birdied the first playoff hole. She was tied with Sei Young Kim, who lost an eight-shot lead she built during the third round, and Jin Hee Im. When she drained a 20-foot birdie putt to win, Green pumped her fist in celebration. She shot 67-69-67-68 for a 17-under 271 total and hoisted the gargantuan trophy that is packaged in a bigger box than her suitcase.
Good problem to have.
Green also won $US712,500 ($A1.09 million) of the $US4.75 million purse. On Saturday, JM Eagle chairman and chief executive Walter Wang announced that he was raising the purse by $US1 million, making it the largest purse on the LPGA aside from major championships and the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship.
When Green was told of the huge increase, she dropped an excited F-bomb. A day later, she earned an extra $US150,000 ($A230,000) beyond the originally planned amount.
“It’s amazing. Obviously, the start of this year has been kind of crazy for me, winning back up in Australia and already having won Singapore,” Green said. “It’s going to be really hard to come back down to Earth next week, so that’s going to be my next challenge.”
Green won the event in back-to-back seasons in 2023 and 2024 at Wilshire Country Club, the usual home of the tournament. Wilshire is undergoing a two-year renovation project, so this was the second consecutive year played at El Caballero. No matter the course, Green plays well in Los Angeles. She’s had top-10 finishes in her past six starts in this event.
With this win, she also joins a select group of Australian players to have multiple LPGA wins in a single season before the year’s first major:
1976: Jan Stephenson
1999: Karrie Webb
2000: Karrie Webb
2011: Karrie Webb
2014: Karrie Webb
2026: Hannah Green
Asked where she’d like the tournament next year, Green said: “Anywhere in California seems quite nice to me. Even when we played in San Francisco, I had some results up there. El Cab is a really good venue. The members, the staff, everyone really made us feel like it’s a true championship tournament. I don’t know where it is next year. I guess we’ll hopefully find that out soon, but I think it will stay in LA. So that would be really nice.”
Green’s fast start to the season is uncharacteristic, but she’ll take it. She usually takes a while to heat up, but 2026 is clearly different; she’s won the HSBC Women’s World Championship, Women’s Australian Open and the Australian WPGA Championship. She has three top-10 finishes in four LPGA events.
Maybe it all adds up to winning a second career major next week as the Chevron Championship is at Memorial Park in Houston.
“I also am coming into our first major of the year, probably the most confident I have been in my own game,” Green said. “I’m really looking forward to it. It is going to be hard, travelling Sunday night on a red-eye, getting in Monday, my head will probably still be quite big.
“I feel like I kind of need to bring myself back down to Earth and the week after Houston, I’m not playing. So I think maybe I’ll try and celebrate this win then. We all still have to peak for next week.”
