It is the technical adjustment that has seen Hannah Green surge back into the top five but one subtle enough the champion does not labour on it when quizzed on her dazzling form.
The Western Australian, who enters the first major championship for the year in Houston this week in stunning form, is reaping rich rewards from freeing her arms.
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During a summer sabbatical, Green revelled in her time away from the links, spending time with friends and family in Perth between a dash to Hawaii for a sponsor’s obligation.
“I actually found it quite easy to distract myself from golf, and I could have easily touched a club earlier than when I did, but I just felt like by giving myself an extra week of rest, it was going to make me more motivated to get back into practice,” she said.
After a challenging 2025 which saw her slide from the top 5 ranking to 20, the 29-year-old got back to work in January with a view to recapturing her great form from a year prior, a season in which she clinched three tournaments.
She hit the gym, with boxing a new habit in order to build her cardio fitness, something that had never been her favourite thing to work on. And on the links she enjoyed her training and played a few rounds on Perth’s superb golf courses.
But chatting with foxsports.com.au prior to her Australian Open success at Kooyonga in Adelaide in March, Green said she “did not really work on anything too different” and there was no desire to “recreate anything”.
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When that was put to her coach Ritchie Smith, he chuckled when explaining they had made a “fairly significant” change, but perhaps “the art of good coaching” was keeping his charge comfortable.
“Maybe we did it in a way where she didn’t realise we were,” he said this week.
“I don’t mind that. I don’t actually mind her saying we didn’t do too much. (But) when you look at the actual pre-season and post-season video, it is really quite a different approach. And I think she now realises it is quite different.”
The Western Australian coach, who also works with stars including Minjee and Min Woo Lee, said the focus through summer was on altering the initial stages of the 29-year-old’s swing.
“We changed things quite quite significantly and when I say we, I say her coaching group had a bit of an epiphany that we could change her set up,” Smith told foxsports.com.au
“We didn’t like the way she had taken the club away from the ball historically and we had an epiphany that maybe we could alter that by just her balance and her body structure at the set-up.
“She had a tendency to be quite straight-legged and sit on top of the ball a bit, so we’ve moved her away from the ball and gave her arms some freedom, certainly set up her back a lot more structured, moved her balance back from her toes more to the centre of her feet and that has enabled her to, I think, become a little bit more controlled with her takeaway, and then get into a more balanced position at the top, from which she can actually hit the ball harder.”
To clarify. The Green Team did not move the star, who has posted two LPGA Tour and two European Tour triumphs in the past two months, any further away from the Srixon Z-Star ball she uses in terms of her feet placement. The realignment came in the stance itself.
“It was nothing in terms of her feet position, but her upper-body is now taller and her balance is more dynamic, meaning her balance is more through the middle of her feet rather than toes or heels,” Smith said.
“She has a tendency to have a significant amount of club face rotation when she putts and we’ve tried to get her back to just using her body rotation as her power source when she putts rather than using her hands a lot.”
The score board speaks for itself. After starting the season with a seventh in Thailand, she was superb winning the Women’s World Championship in Singapore.
On returning home, she broke the Aussie Open drought for local winners dating back to Karrie Webb’s triumph in 2014 and followed that with a great success in the Australian WPGA Championship in Queensland.
After a rare blemish in her first event back in the United States, she came from six shots back with seven holes to play to win the LA Championship in stunning fashion on Sunday.
“It’s amazing. Obviously the start of this year has been kind of crazy for me, winning back in Australia and also already having won in Singapore,” she said.
“So to have that go into my bank account – obviously not all of it with taxes and being a alien from the US – it’s amazing. It’s going to be really hard to come back down to earth next week, so that’s going to be my next challenge. But … I’m obviously on cloud nine right now, but I’ll have to stay a little bit more humble for next week.”
POSITIONED TO POUNCE
A feature of Green’s triumph in Los Angeles last week was her stunning finish. Those approaches to the green on the stretch? They spoke to the belief she has in her game.
With pin-point precision she cut into the leeway between her and the leaders to set up a three-way playoff with Koreans Im Jin Hee and Kim Sei-young.
When they made mistakes on the playoff hole, the 2019 Women’s PGA Championship winner was flawless and drained a decent putt to clinch her eighth LPGA Tour title.
It is indisputable the technical adjustment has polished a slightly rough edge on the West Aussie diamond. But it is also worth noting Green was already an outstanding golfer.
Smith said a case could be made that the major champion, who has two European Tour triumphs and six APGL victories as well, has arguably overachieved while sorting her game.
Her nous, guts, determination and sheer toughness on the course remains a major strength of a player who is also enjoying the fact her husband, fellow professional Jarryd Felton, has taken time from his own pursuits to travel with her this year.
“She’s always had the toughness. No-one could ever doubt how tough she is,” Smith said.
“You could probably say that during her career, she’s overachieved because she didn’t swing it as well as what the other girls did, but she still performed better.
“I think that she has the inherent skills of competitiveness and gameplay and strategy, but she wasn’t supporting that with great technique. She has a tendency to go from one extreme to another. I could say, ‘Hey Hannah, you’re got an issue with a hand movement’, and she would take that so far in the other direction that she’d have another issue with the hand movement.
“Her body shape has changed a lot. She is a strong girl now. You could say that she’s got a tighter physique and she’s just a complete athlete now. Her movement patterns are probably limited by her strength. She is very strong. That is good.”
The hard work off the course, fine tuning her swing while building a fitness and strength base, combined with her natural grit and talent is why she is now a top five golfer in the world. Growing belief and a sense of belonging is also a factor.
When she first reached No.4 a couple of years ago, a surge that resulted from triumphs in Singapore and LA, which she has repeated this year, along with a win in the BMW Ladies Championship in career and a fourth-placed finish in the Paris Olympics, it was new to her. But this time around she truly understands her game and knows this is where she belongs.
“Her ability to get back into the tournament last week just shows how tough she was,” Smith said.
“If you look at the Australian Open, she just keeps putting herself in the right position. Sometimes those putts go in. Sometimes they don’t. But it means that your level of consistency is going to get better and I think that because technically she’s got so much better, that she is able to keep herself in the tournament for longer.
“And those really destructive shots where they get on the water, or they have a hazard, or you lose a ball, or whatever, they just don’t really happen with her anymore, whereas they used to happen a lot more because she was technically not as good at the long game and technically not as good with her short game. She’d make an error, and then she’d compound the error by lacking good technique down the chain of shots.
“Well, that doesn’t exist anymore and if we have a look at her scoring, there’s not too many bogeys. Generally she makes three birdies for every bogey that she makes.”
MINING THE MIND OF HER MATE MIN
After her win in LA, Green touched on the immediate task ahead, and that was not just catching a red-eye from LAX to Texas, a challenge that can sap you the next day.
What’s next is continuing her red hot form and raising the bar at major level. Since her breakthrough major win in 2019, she has had a couple of top 10 finishes but has struggled to reproduce her best.
The Chevron Classic is a prime example of that, with the star from south of the Swan River in Perth missing the cut for the past three years.
But the event has moved this year to Memorial Park Golf Course in Houston, the site where fellow Smith charge Min Woo Lee had a great success just over 12 months when winning his maiden PGA Tour title over Gary Woodland and Scottie Scheffler.
Green said that her mate Min told her length off the tee was important at the course, though it is more than likely Memorial will play a little differently given The Chevron Championship is held slightly later in the year than when Lee won in March.
“I am probably not the most accurate off the tee (but) he said the fairways are pretty generous. The rough wasn’t too thick when they played,” she said in Houston.
“My caddie Dave (Buhai) actually caddied in the Houston Open this year and he said some of the tee boxes are similar to what the men played. For them, that’s rather short. For us, it is quite long. So in that sense, I don’t know if Min Woo and I can relate to the same clubs with our approach shots, but he did say at least it was wide, because that is kind of where I’ve struggled when we played at Carlton Woods (previous host)
“Off the tee is where I made up a lot of shots, so it was just nice to hear that from Min. Obviously he loves it here. He loves a crowd. (I’m) hoping people can come out and cheer for us.”
Smith suspects Memorial will suit longer hitters like the Australians but said it will also work in the favour of a couple of superstars at the head of the rankings.
“We don’t really know what the course will be like. The Houston event Min Woo won is set up as a precursor to the Masters, so they have low rough. We are now more into the growing season and they might turn up and the rough will be longer,” he said.
“But we are assuming the course will play longer because it is a major, and that should suit our players because our players are long and our players are great ball strikers. But it is also going to suit a couple of the other leading players like (world No.1) Jeeno Thitikul and Nelly Korda (who is ranked second) as well. But we hold no fears.
“I don’t think it is a statistically difficult course. If you play solid, smart golf and take a couple of the hazards out of plan, as Min did, the golf course is very scoreable.”
While Green is understandably in the limelight given her brilliant form, she is just one of eight Aussies in the field and Smith believes three-time major champion Minjee Lee will also be suited.
The fellow West Aussie, who won the Women’s PGA Championship last year, withdrew from the event in LA with food poisoning after opening the event with 3-under, which is a clear setback leading into the first major for the year.
“She is alright. She has a bit on her plate but she is playing well,” he said.
“She said she putted poorly, but shot 4-under on the front nine in the tournament last week – she said she should have shot 7 or 8-under – but she is going OK. It just depends on how well she has got over this little bout of food poisoning.”
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THE SECRET TO MORE MAJOR SUCCESS
During her recent chat with foxsports.com.au, Green said she was aiming for more consistency and trying to reduce the pressure she placed on herself in major championships.
“I think I’ve put too much pressure on myself, especially last year with my ranking being as high as it was for the first time going into majors,” she said.
“So now that I have just jumped back into the top 10, perhaps there might be more eyes on me and there will probably be more pressure on me to perform better and I really just hope I can have a more consistent year (in the majors).
“Obviously I’d love to have more major championships in my hands, and I’d love to contend more than I have in the past. So that is a goal of mine.”
Smith, who caught up with Green and co last month in the US, believes it is only a matter of time before the Aussie star is within reach of a second major championship.
“For one, I think she now realises that she is one of the top five players in the world,” he said.
“(Whereas) I think two years ago, it was a pure shock that she was a top five player in the world for her, and that the expectation she couldn’t deal with as easily. But now I think she can.
“I would say that, yes, we’ve not had great performances in the majors in the last few years, but I think that might be about to change.”
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