Ferd Lewis: Hannah Green becoming a household name in the LPGA

When Hannah Green was asked by an LPGA official to attend Tuesday’s pre-Lotte Championship press conference at Ko Olina, her first reaction was total surprise.

Also her second and third ones.

It was the first press conference appearance of her two-year tenure on the LPGA Tour and came as the 126th-ranked player following a missed cut at the previous tournament, the ANA Inspiration, last week.

She might as well have been Hannah Who? when she looked around at those who surrounded her on the dais. There was three-time LPGA winner (Hyo Joo Kim), seven-time winner and defending champion (Brooke Henderson), four-time champion (Minjee Lee) and Lotte-sponsored Hye Jin Choi, an up-and-coming player from the Korean tour.

“I was like, ‘Oh, OK, this is (surprising). … probably everybody thinks this is a bit strange that I was in that company,” Green said. “But, it was nice.”

After a 6-under-par 66, good for a fourth place tie in Wednesday’s opening round, there was nothing strange or surprising about the second press conference of her career Wednesday. The 22-year-old Australian from Perth had earned her place in front of microphones and cameras and clearly relished it.

Powered by an eagle on the 345-yard, par-4 third hole, Green briefly held a share of the first-day lead until the afternoon, when Floridian Nelly Korda ultimately occupied the top of the leaderboard with a 63.

“Yeah, I hit a drive onto the fairway, and then I had roughly (94 yards), I think. (Then, I) hit my gap wedge and had a couple bounces and went into the hole,” Green said, still in wonderment.

Then, she waited, hopefully, for confirmation. “I wasn’t sure if it went in because I don’t have the best eyesight. But, yeah, my caddie was like, ‘I think it went in.’ I was like, ‘Oh,’ and then people started to clap. So that was really cool. I hit that club a couple times from roughly that yardage earlier in my nine and didn’t really hit it close at all, so it was nice to have it reward myself for that hole.”

The start to the four-day, 72-hole tournament, which was played in intermittent rain and light winds in her morning round, was in huge contrast to her last tournament, when she missed the cut with rounds of 80 and 75.

“I had just a lot of bad breaks, so it was nice to finally see some putts go in and then also a couple lucky bounces,” Green said.

Green came to Ko Olina with modest goals after a promising rookie season. “I just wanted to perform better than I did last year (at Lotte),” she said. “I barely made the cut and didn’t have a great weekend.”

She shot a 5-over-par 293, tying for 50th place here in 2018 while struggling for consistency in the wind and elements. “Last year I felt like I didn’t have very much consistency. Like, I would hit a great couple of shots and then hit a really wayward shot.”

LPGA spokeswoman Kristen Yoon said Green was invited to Tuesday’s press conference as a way of giving young players experience and, perhaps, helping to boost their confidence.

For one day, at least, it apparently worked.

“Hopefully, I can have more (press conference appearances), ” Green said.”Hopefully, people know my name (now).”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.