Hannah Green of Australia is this week’s defending champion at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, and said with the shift of the event from June to October, and with no fans in attendance this week at Aronimink Golf Club, her responsibilities in defending probably lessened a little.
Green won the 2019 KPMG last summer at Hazeltine National Golf Club outside Minneapolis. She’d come off a missed cut the prior week and certainly wasn’t thinking about winning as she stepped on the grounds, but she played well in the first round (68) and would end up going wire-to-wire in her victory.
What did she learn about herself?
“I think just the mental toughness,” Green said. “I didn't really think I was capable to go wire-to-wire in an event, let alone a major championship. Just hanging in there, and even though I was kind of crashing a little bit on the back nine, at the start of the back nine, in the last round, I was trying to give myself as much positive thoughts as possible and worked really well with my caddie to make sure that I knew that I was still in it.”
Green loves being home in Australia, but with some big U.S. events still to play in the last quarter of 2020 (including a U.S. Women’s Open in December), she probably won’t get home until after Christmas. Green has been staying in a house in Orlando, Fla., rented by Golf Australia. Fellow Aussie Sue Oh has been staying there, too, and they play rounds sometimes at nearby Isleworth, where Aussies Curtis Luck and Ryan Ruffels of the Korn Ferry Tour are members. It was Tiger Woods’ home base for years.
“I’m such a homebody, so that’s probably going to be the biggest struggle of the year,” Green said of her extended U.S. staycation. If she were to win again, plans could change. “Hopefully I can get home earlier than Christmas.”
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