Western Australians Hannah Green and Kirsten Rudgeley will aim to break their country\u2019s 12-year women\u2019s golf Australian Open drought this weekend after catapulting themselves to a three-way tie for second during day two in Adelaide, just one shot behind Frenchwoman Celine Herbin.<\/p>\n
Ladies European Tour veteran Herbin added to her strong day one six-under effort with a three-under at 69 shots during the afternoon session at Kooyonga Golf Club on Friday, but will face tough competition from Rudgeley and Green in front of their home crowd.<\/p>\n
A major champion with seven LPGA victories, many will see Green as the potential favourite heading into the weekend\u2019s final two rounds of action.<\/p>\n
She tallied two birdies and an eagle to begin the afternoon and only picked up her form from there, tallying four birdies in the final nine holes, shooting a three-under at 69 for the day.<\/p>\n
No Australian has won the tournament since Karrie Webb in 2014 and Green said she was ready for the challenge the weekend would bring.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m super excited,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope there are a lot of Australians who come out and watch this weekend\u2026you\u2019ve got some of the world\u2019s best players so it\u2019s a great opportunity for them to see up close how we do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday I thought the turnout was great and even this afternoon I thought it was really good to see so many people\u2026Adelaide has always supported sporting events and even when we played here five, six years ago, they were some of the best crowds we played in front of.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ll definitely need to rely on them come this weekend because it\u2019s going to be hard to kind of try and close out this tournament but I\u2019ve put myself in a good position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, 25-year-old Kirsten Rudgeley surged up the leaderboard after recording a five-under for 67, flicking a switch in the back nine to score five birdies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played nicely all day, I played steady and my ball-striking is really good at the moment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m putting it nicely and just giving myself chances\u2026that\u2019s what you\u2019ve got to do in a golf tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tied with Green and Rudgeley for second spot is Frenchwoman Agathe Laisne, while Victorian Stephanie Bunque and New South Wales\u2019 Kelsey Bennett are part of a four-way tie in third place.<\/p>\n
RISING SA GOLF STAR\u2019S SPECIAL HOLE-IN-ONE MOMENT <\/p>\n
Rising South Australian young gun Raegan Denton has made a hole-in-one in her Australian Open debut at Kooyonga Golf Club in Adelaide, marking a magical moment in front of her home crowd.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old amateur, who started golfing with her brother in their hometown of Coffin Bay on the Eyre Peninsula as a six-year-old, shot the hole-in-one at the seventh hole to move her score back to level par with two holes to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy emotions are just so high,\u201d Denton said after her first Aus Open debut.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as my scoring wasn\u2019t as good as I\u2019d hoped it would be today, it was still so much fun to be in this environment and I had so many people out there who I knew watching, which was just really awesome.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have such a big crowd on that hole-in-one was awesome…I\u2019ve never had one in a tournament before so it was a really big moment and I\u2019m so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denton has produced big years in golf recently, winning the Queensland Amateur at the end of 2024 before claiming the Jack Newton International Classic in Sydney and the Australian Junior Amateur in 2025.<\/p>\n
She has also earned a scholarship to Louisiana State University later this year as part of the renowned college\u2019s women\u2019s golf program.<\/p>\n
The rising young star\u2019s family was in attendance at Kooyonga on Thursday to watch her take another big step forward in her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mum, dad, brother and other people from SA golf who I\u2019ve known for years are here so it\u2019s just really cool,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any chance of me forgetting this any time soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
DEFENDING CHAMPION\u2019S AWKWARD START<\/p>\n
Australian star and reigning women\u2019s PGA champion Minjee Lee will look to put a challenging opening day of the 2026 Australian Open behind her after shooting on par at Kooyonga Golf Club in Adelaide.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old shot two bogeys and a double bogey during Thursday\u2019s morning session as she quickly fell away from the leading pack in unpredictable, windy conditions, finishing at an equal-24th on the leaderboard.<\/p>\n
Despite the tough start to the Open, Lee remained positive ahead of the next three days of golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t hit it to the best of my ability so hopefully tomorrow I can get something going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBall striking was a bit lacking but my putting was good and my short game was good so I think if I can just tidy up my long game a bit I\u2019ll be in a better position.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has been 12 years since Australia has seen a home champion, with Karrie Webb being the last women\u2019s Aus Open victor in 2014.<\/p>\n
Lee said she was aware of the added pressure this year\u2019s Australians were under to perform and snap the drought but remained focused on the task at hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try not to think about it. I know everyone would love to see a home winner but there\u2019s a lot of golf to be played and it\u2019s just about putting one foot in front of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fellow Western Australian Hannah Green produced a solid morning session to sit in 10th spot at two-under, while New South Wales\u2019 Kelsey Bennett and Claire Shin both finished equal-third for the session with a score of three-under.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall I feel like I\u2019m pretty happy with two under par,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to make bogeys out here on this course. There are some shorter holes where you can hit one bad shot and then that\u2019s it, so you need to make sure you\u2019re staying on top of your entire game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Australians Hannah Green and Kirsten Rudgeley will aim to break their country\u2019s 12-year women\u2019s golf Australian Open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[3443,64,63,689,259498,266533,71300,2105,755,266534,29736,266532,24575,266535,13342,185087,673,677,211379,23508,1124,85,670],"class_list":["post-537430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-adelaide","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-young-gun","tag-coffin-bay","tag-debate","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-golf","tag-golf-program","tag-golf-star","tag-hole-in-one-moment","tag-home-crowd","tag-jack-newton","tag-louisiana-state-university","tag-morning-session","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-raegan-denton","tag-sarah","tag-south-australia","tag-sports","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537430","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=537430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}