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Hannah Green's 'life-changing' LPGA bonus

3 minute read

Australian golf star Hannah Green says winning the LPGA Tour's season-long $1.37 million jackpot for her attacking prowess will be life-changing.

HANNAH GREEN of Australia.
HANNAH GREEN of Australia. Picture: Kelly Defina/Getty Images

Hannah Green plans on splashing out on a house after landing a "life-changing" $US1 million bonus for winning the LPGA Tour's season-long AON Risk Reward Challenge.

The Australian Olympian sealed the deal on the weekend without even picking up a club after leading the tour's "strategy and decision-making" contest for much of the year.

Green's attacking prowess and ability to maximise opportunities on the carefully-selected holes used at each LPGA event propelled her to 29 under par for the challenge.

The 2019 major winner birdied 72 per cent of the designated holes and eagled almost 10 per cent of them to blow away her peers, including American world No.1 Nelly Korda and Korean Jin Young Ko, who are fighting out Player of the Year honours.

"I try to be aggressive when I'm on the golf course," Green said on Wednesday.

"I feel like that's where I can show that side of me and to be able to have the opportunity to showcase it every week was really cool.

"It was just something I really wanted to win. I mean, I would always read the fact sheet to see what hole it was and always tried to make sure that I got a practise round on that hole."

American young gun Matthew Wolffe won the PGA Tour's equivalent challenge.

"It's something that I guess players don't really think about at the start of the year," Green said of the big prize.

"But coming down to the crunch I was nervous. It's definitely such a life-changing thing for us players. Just gives me a little bit of comfort when I come back out to play each season.

"So I'm very grateful. I haven't even made that much money over two seasons. Yeah, it's still not quite sunk in yet."

When it does, Green will go house hunting in Perth after pointing out that Australia's housing price boom and affordabillty crisis even extends to the country's elite sport stars.

"The market is a crazy in Australia. Every time I look online every house that I like is under offer within two or three days," said the 24-year-old world No.26.

"It is quite difficult to buy houses in Australia, especially as a sports person with the not-frequent income, and as well as foreign income.

"So when I return to Australia, after I have done the hotel quarantine, I'll be looking.

"I actually wanted to buy a house during the off-season, so this gives me an opportunity to actually play comfortably.

"It will be life changing. I could almost pay my house off and not have a mortgage, so it's setting me up for after I finish playing golf."

Winning the $A1.37 million bonus has also boosted Green's confidence ahead of the LPGA's season finale, the CME Group Tour Championship, starting in Florida on Thursday.

"Definitely. I even had a good result last year here at CME. Finished tied for second," she said.

Green joins fellow Australians and WA mates Minjee Lee and Su Oh in the elite 60-player field, with the world's best vying for the $US1.5 million winner's cheque.

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