Green For Go

Hannah Green (above with the Australian Open trophy) must be enjoying life at the moment.

The 29-year old Australian has risen to No 7 in the world rankings due, in no small part, to her stellar play over the last two to three weeks.  Now in her ninth year on the LPGA tour, Green recorded her seventh win on that circuit at the HSBC Women’s World Championship which was played three weeks ago at Sentosa golf club in Singapore.  Every win is special but this was made doubly so by the fact that she had her husband Jarryd Felton on the bag.

Jarryd obviously carried out exemplary caddy duties because the duo then travelled together down to Adelaide for Hannah’s next start in the Women’s Australian Open which has featured for many years on the Ladies’ European tour (LET) schedule.

It had seriously rankled with the sports-mad Aussie population that the last time a home player won their national Open was way back in 2014 when Karrie Webb topped the leaderboard.  This year’s edition was at the beautiful Kooyonga golf course and Hannah and Jarryd wowed the home supporters by carving out a one-stroke victory.  The huge media interest and subsequent column inches, photographs and videos about the wife-husband partnership will provide oodles of material for the family album.  A home player lifting his or her national open is second only to winning a major…………….perhaps.

And did I mention Hannah already has one of those – a major?  The 2019 Women’s PGA Championship.  I doubt it’ll be her last.

Ah, Kooyonga.  The Adelaide club holds a special place in my heart.  It was the venue for the 1979 Commonwealth Tournament and my first overseas outing for a British team.  We had a lovely week or so of preparation before the serious golf began – it gave us time to get over the huge journey and to adjust to the significant time difference.  We were assigned members of the home club as caddies, all good players, and we had the benefit of several practice rounds with them.  But, how times have changed!

Back then we, of course, carried yardage books – or rather, notebooks.  I don’t recall my book having too many yardages in it.  It tended to be filled with shorthand notes that would indicate to me, for example, that a good tee shot on the fifth might leave me level with the third banksia tree on the left.  From there, into a one-club wind, a five iron would reach the middle of the green.  Nary a number hit the page.

This may sound mad in this precise, laser-measured era but it worked well enough – up to a point.  My caddy was unable to be present for one of the final practice rounds so I played a few holes solo with much consulting of the notebook and assiduous learning of the borrows on the green taking place.  I was challenged, however, by the unfamiliar array of trees, undergrowth and flora – very foreign to a (not so) wee girl from Norn Iron.  Without my caddy by my side, just which of these exotic-looking things were banksia trees?  Were they those low ones over there or that run of taller ones at the back?  No idea whatsoever.  Cue much relief when my caddy returned and I was a big step closer to having numbers in my book.

I made many friends at Kooyonga, particularly Dulcie Doherty who was the hostess for the British team.  She looked after us so well – nothing was too much trouble and she and I kept in touch from then onwards.  We corresponded for many decades and I looked forward to receiving a lengthy missive each January, filled with news and observations about the grand slam tennis (one of Dulcie’s passions) which takes place at that time of year.  When she celebrated her 80th birthday Dulcie and her husband, Jack, hired a Harley for a day and I still have at home the photo of the two leather-clad octogenarians.

I’m still in Tenerife looking for the sun and obviously can’t access any photos from home so I emailed Gill Stewart to see if she could put her hand on her copy of that 1979 team.  Within a matter of minutes she came up trumps and sent me the photo below.

I believe a copy of this picture was still hanging in the locker room at Kooyonga as recently as five years or so ago, along, I’m sure, with photos of all the competing teams.

Our captain that year was the inimitable Carol Comboy of  Cheshire, which incidentally has just been awarded “County of the Year 2026” at the prestigious England Golf Awards ceremony in Manchester.  The county has been recognised for its  “outstanding commitment to supporting its 95 affiliated clubs and delivering impact at every level of the game”.  Congratulations are in order all round.  Carol, a trailblazer herself, would be so proud of you all.  Keep up the good work.

Finally, many thanks to all of you who took the time and trouble to send congratulations re my honorary membership of the PGA.  It is much appreciated.

I’m back in England next week so my search for the sun will continue there for a while.