TOP AUSSIE FEMALE AMATEUR TURNS PRO

FROM AUSTRALIA GOLF NEWS

One of Australia's most promising female amateur golfers, Hannah Green, has taken the professional plunge.

Green, 19, today announced she would leave the amateur ranks after a stellar career that culminated in representing Australia at last month's World Amateur Championship.

The six-time West Australian state team representative will tee up as a pro for the first time at the second stage of the LPGA Tour's Q-School in Venice, Florida, from 20-23 October. She skipped the first stage by virtue of her world ranking being inside the top 400, despite having only played a handful of pro events.

Among those tournaments was her runner-up finish to world No.1 Lydia Ko in the 2015 ISPS HANDA New Zealand Women's Open, the forerunner to a brilliant 2016 summer campaign that was critical in her decision.

After finishing T11 alongside Karrie Webb in the Victorian Open, Green returned to New Zealand to play in the same group as Ko and again finished T10. She then finished low amateur and T20 against the world's best players at the LPGA Tour-sanctioned ISPS HANDA Women's Australian Open before being leading Australian and T12 at the Ladies Masters.

"Doing well in those events showed me I was closer to making the transition than I'd previously thought, so it's time," said Green, who also reached the quarter-finals of the US Women's Amateur, was joint runner-up in the Canadian Women's Amateur and a member of the successful Asia-Pacific team in the Patsy Hankins Trophy in Portugal during a busy 2016.

"I need to go and compete at that level and test myself against the world's best players more regularly."