Local hope Steph Kyriacou believes high expectations from parochial home supporters is a bonus, not a burden, at the Women’s Australian Open.<\/p>\n
Kyriacou will be among 31 Australians teeing off on Thursday at Adelaide’s Kooyonga Golf Club hoping to end the nation’s 12-year barren stretch at the open.<\/p>\n
Just three Australians – Karrie Webb, Jane Crafter and Jan Stephenson – have won their national open.<\/p>\n
Webb’s fifth and last triumph, in 2014, is the most recent Australian victory – a fact Kyriacou and compatriots hope soon changes.<\/p>\n
“It’s definitely a tournament we want to win in our career,” Kyriacou said.<\/p>\n
“It’s always exciting. It’s a bit nerve-racking because there’s thousands of eyes just on you.<\/p>\n
“But I think being an Aussie playing in front of Australian crowds, it makes it easier because no matter how you play, they’re always going to be encouraging and they’re going to be supporting you.<\/p>\n
“So for us, we have that home ground advantage.”<\/p>\n
The Australian contingent is headlined by major winners Minjee Lee, Hannah Green and Grace Kim.<\/p>\n
With Lee and Kim capturing major titles last year, it’s the first time a Women’s Australian Open has boasted two reigning major champs.<\/p>\n
All have spoken of added pressure associated with a home open and being the first local winner since Webb a dozen years ago, but Kyriacou takes a different tack. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“I don’t know if it puts more pressure on,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s just something really cool to look forward to when you do lift that trophy – you’re going to be on a trophy with all those amazing Australian golfers.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local hope Steph Kyriacou believes high expectations from parochial home supporters is a bonus, not a burden, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-533767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}