ORLANDO, Fla. — Defending champion Brooke Henderson is back in action this week at the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions and is raring to go in her title defense at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Fla.
The 13-time LPGA Tour winner captured her most recent victory in in resounding fashion last year, going wire-to-wire to win by four shots over Charley Hull and Maja Stark with a four-day total of 16-under. While it was a dream start to her ninth season on the LPGA Tour, Henderson struggled to maintain that momentum over the next few months, only recording one top-15 finish in her next 10 starts.
But Henderson turned a corner over the summer, finishing T15 at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and solo 12th at the U.S. Women’s Open, and after missing two cuts at the Dana Open and the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational, she finished second in her title defense at The Amundi Evian Championship.
That performance in France proved to be a shift for Henderson, who missed just one cut and earned three top-15 results in her last eight official events of the 2023 season, the best of which was a tie for sixth at the Maybank Championship. She then went on to finish runner-up in the inaugural Grant Thornton Invitational alongside her playing partner and fellow Canadian Corey Conners in December, a positive string of events that propelled the two-time major champion into the off-season with a lot of hope for the new year.
“I feel like with golf, it's a roller coaster. Lots of highs and lots of lows,” said Henderson. “You just have to continue to ride it out and be patient. Starting out with a win here last year definitely (was a) huge high. Then I did have some lows throughout the year. But I feel like near the end of the season, I was starting to climb my way back up. Second-place finish at Grant Thornton was really fun, playing with the PGA Tour guys.
“I just started to see a lot of positives near the end of the season. I tried to continue that on through the off-season, and I'm excited to be playing here this week and playing next week as well. Couple of weeks off and go to Asia, which I always really look forward to playing those events over there as well.”
Like many players often do, the 26-year-old spent her brief off-season fine-tuning a few things mentally and physically in her golf game, doing as much as she could considering the tight turnaround with only 39 days separating the final round of the Grant Thornton Invitational and the first round of the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. The biggest difference for Henderson will be in her golf bag as she’s been outfitted with a new TaylorMade Qi10 driver, fairway woods and putter heading into the first event of the season.
But it’s nothing she hasn’t handled before, and considering Henderson debuted her partnership with TaylorMade at the 2023 Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, this recent equipment upgrade could once again be a good omen for the winningest Canadian golfer in history.
“It was pretty short off-season so didn't really do as much as I would normally. It is nice to rest a little bit, prepare, and practice for this year,” Henderson said. “I put in some new irons late last fall, so I love them a lot, so just continuing to work, being a little bit more consistent with the iron play. But they've made a big difference in my game.
“I also changed my fairway woods and driver as well. And putter. So, it's been a really big change the last two months. All very positive, and I feel like they're really going to enhance my game. Hopefully, I can start off putting them to good use this week and throughout the rest of the season.”
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