[Photo: Monica Marchesani]<\/p>\n
Hannah Green knows there is a target on her back after navigating a roller-coaster second round to lead the Australian WPGA Championship by two strokes at Sanctuary Cove Golf & Country Club.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Hannah Green determined to complete Australian Open\u2013WPGA double<\/a><\/p>\n Seeking to make it three wins from her past three starts, the world No.7 wasted no time in joining England\u2019s Meghan MacLaren on top of the leaderboard with two early birdies yet struggled to put a greater gap between herself and the chasing pack.<\/p>\n Starting the day one stroke behind Scotland\u2019s Kelsey MacDonald, Green took the outright lead with a lengthy birdie putt at the par-4 fifth but then took two steps back when she found the water at the par-3 sixth.<\/p>\n That mis-step was wiped clear when she lasered a 3-wood from 225 metres to set up eagle at the par-5 sixth before doubling her advantage to two with birdie at the par-4 eighth.<\/p>\n But just as it looked the Karrie Webb Cup was in safe hands, Green had to fight through bogeys on 11 and 15 before holing a 12-footer for birdie at the par-5 finisher for a four-under 67 and 10-under total.<\/p>\n That puts her two clear of MacLaren (68) and three ahead of Germany\u2019s Alexandra Forsterling (66) and a chasing pack she now has to keep at bay.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely feel like I\u2019m probably putting more pressure on myself as I am obviously on such a hot run,\u201d Green conceded, who has won the HSBC Women\u2019s World Championship on the LPGA Tour<\/a> and last week\u2019s Women\u2019s Australian Open in Adelaide<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cPerhaps if I didn\u2019t win the last two events, I would maybe fly under the radar a little bit more than I have obviously winning my last two tournaments that I\u2019ve participated in.<\/p>\n \u201cWe still have a really strong LET field, so it\u2019s not like I have it easy this weekend. There\u2019s going to be a lot of good players behind me that are going to be chasing me and probably have less pressure on themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n One of those is MacLaren, who says Green\u2019s presence in the field this week is inspirational to the international contingent.<\/p>\n On the comeback trail, MacLaren is hoping to add to her three previous LET wins, all of which have come in Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were three major champions in the field last week, which whenever you bring that to an LET event, I think it just elevates the whole thing,\u201d MacLaren said of Green\u2019s inclusion.<\/p>\n \u201cI also think it\u2019s really nice to see them support their own country and their own tour. It\u2019s inspiring for everybody on the LET to go, \u2018That\u2019s the level and can we compete?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cObviously there\u2019s probably a fair bit of pressure on them to come and perform here so I think they deserve a load of credit for being here.<\/p>\n \u201cThe very first time I came out here, I feel like I knew I was going to like it out here. It just suits my personality, I think. And then when I got my first win out here, that\u2019s just obviously solidified the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n There are just two Australians in the top 12 on the leaderboard through 36 holes, Queensland rookie Hannah Reeves following up her 67 in the first round with a one-under 70 to be five-under and in a tie for eighth.<\/p>\n One shot further back are LPGA Tour veteran Sarah Kemp (68) and Gold Coast 23-year-old Momo Sugiyama (70), safely through to the weekend in her first professional event in Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Monica Marchesani] Hannah Green knows there is a target on her back after navigating a roller-coaster second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,29527,28635,273288,234506,85,271237,178135],"class_list":["post-552461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-hannah-green","tag-ladies-european-tour","tag-meghan-maclaren","tag-sanctuary-cove-golf-country-club","tag-sports","tag-wpga-championship-of-australia","tag-wpga-tour-of-australasia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552461","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=552461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}