Hannah Green has defied the exhaustion of a whirlwind month and some final-round tension to win a third straight title and rewrite Australian golfing history.
The world number seven defied some erratic play to complete a dominant four-stroke victory to sit alone at 16-under on Sunday at the Australian WPGA Championship on the Gold Coast.Â
Green (65, 67, 67, 69) was forced to scramble when, just as a runaway victory beckoned, she was wayward off the tee to give the field hope.
But her main challenger, Germany’s Alexandra Forsterling (12-under), could only claw to within two strokes of the leader before the 29-year-old steadied to complete a popular victory.
Hannah Green is the first Australian to win three consecutive major-tour tournaments. (AAP: Jason O’Brien)
South African Casandra Alexander dropped three shots on the first two holes playing in the last group with Green, but recovered to tie for second with Forsterling.
Green’s Sanctuary Cove triumph followed an Australian Open breakthrough and victory at Singapore’s Women’s World Championship — her seventh LPGA title — in her previous two starts.
In doing so, she became the first Australian golfer to complete a hat-trick of titles in major-tour events, something not even Karrie Webb or Greg Norman managed.
Robert Allenby’s 2005 Triple Crown — he won the Australian Open, Australian PGA Championship and Australian Masters in successive weeks — will go down in folklore.
But all three events were run solely by the PGA Tour of Australasia.
“It feels really amazing, it hasn’t really sunk in and [it has] been a crazy month, four weeks since I won Singapore,” Green said.
“But very special to do that in Australia. I didn’t know how I was going to perform.
“When I have won … I’ve usually flown under the radar, and it’s hard to back up a win, especially the Aussie Open. It’s such a big week.”
Green began the day two strokes clear and briefly had a six-shot buffer after just four holes, before successive bogeys saw that advantage reduced to just two.
A birdie at the ninth — and a Forsterling dropped shot soon after — provided welcome breathing room, before the German’s birdie on the last made it a three-shot buffer with two holes remaining for Green.
The $600,000 event, co-sanctioned with the Ladies European Tour, was being contested for just the second time and first since 2022 after the threat of a cyclone forced its cancellation last year.
It will return to the Sanctuary Cove layout next year.
AAP