Date: November 10, 2015
Author: Blair Jackson

Green switches focus to ALPG tour

Hannah Green will take her challenging week at the Nexus Risk TSA Group WA Open as a learning experience, and hopes her opportunity to play with two veterans of the Australian game will launch her into her professional career.

Green and fellow female competitor Hira Naveed found playing the hard, fast and windy Royal Fremantle layout a challenge this week. But Green knows the experience is invaluable.

Green received entry into the tournament through a sponsor’s exemption. But she knew she would be faced with hitting longer clubs into the par 3’s, and longer shots into the 4’s and 5’s.

That didn’t faze the 18 year old Mt. Lawley product. Green was up for the challenge.

“I just two putted the longer holes and took advantage of the shorter holes where I had wedge in”.

Green was paired with journeymen Peter Lonard and Stephen Leaney on Thursday and Friday. She used the opportunity to learn from their professionalism and course management.

“Watching them play… their choices that they make on the course.

I don’t think this course is very long for these players (male competitors)… their decisions off tees, how they work with their caddies and how their pre-shot routine is the same every time whether they’re 5 over or five under… there was a lot to take out of it”.

Green also noted, with a laugh, she shot one shot better than both Lonard and Leaney on Thursday, which was “pretty cool”.

Green has a busy schedule in the coming months. She is a confirmed starter in the Victorian Open and New South Wales Open on the ALPG tour, and she will “hopefully get a start in New Zealand” at the NZ Open where she finished runner up 12 months ago to current world number number 1 Lydia Ko.

Green also has the goal to play the Australian Ladies Masters and the Australian Open, either from a sponsors invite or through qualifying.

Also in the draw this week at Royal Fremantle was Hannah’s boyfriend and newly turned-pro, Jarryd Felton.

The emerging power couple of WA golf will need to adjust to the realities of being professional touring athletes. But the pair hope to see each other in the eastern states as Jarryd competes in the Australian summer events.

Felton earned his first professional cheque from a T10 finish a week prior at the WA PGA Championship, and Hannah wasn't left out when it came to sharing the spoils.

"He bought me dinner the night I saw him. So that was really nice!"