Minjee Lee, Hannah Green, Lucas Herbert, Cameron Percy, Mark Hensby and Rod Pampling all produced top-ten finishes across their respective tours on an impressive weekend for Australian golf.

Lee was the pick of the bunch as she stormed home to claim a share of second place in her first event of the LPGA season at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore yesterday.

The world number seven shot a remarkable nine-under par final round of 63 - which included eleven birdies - to finish two shots behind world number one Jin Young Ko at 15-under.

Her final round was the best of the tournament at Sentosa Golf Club’s Tanjong Course and she took full advantage of the friendly conditions and the momentum that came from playing in front of crowds again.

“It was so much more cooler than any of the other days that we played. So that little bit of cloud cover makes the biggest difference around here,” Lee said.

“I think just everybody's itching to get out. And just having some support out on the golf course.

“I think we really lacked that human touch part of being a professional athlete and the galleries. I think it's really nice. That way we can give a little bit of us to them; they can give a little bit of them to us.”

Lee has been back home in Perth during her more than three month break from tournament golf and enjoyed her time training and catching up with family and friends, but she was thrilled to get the competitive juices flowing again. 

“It's been a while. But I have been hitting it really well. So it's the first week back, so knocking a little bit of the rust off. But it is really nice to have a really low one in there,” Lee said.

Fellow West Australian Hannah Green continued her great form from her Vic Open and TPS Murray River victories with a tied sixth finish at 13-under.

Green also came home strong with a six-under par final round, but she was left to rue her two-over par opening round which left her with too much ground to make up.

“Yes, I feel like just getting used to the conditions again, being in humidity, it kind of shocks your body a little bit. But I would have loved to have had a different first round, see what happened,” Green said.

“But I'm just happy that I was able to kind of bounce back from that and give myself opportunities and try and be in contention.”

At 13th Beach and Cobram-Barooga, Green was not shy about her ambitions for the season and she was no different after yesterday’s final round.

“I'd love to be in the top 10 in the world, and I don't see why I can't win out here. I feel like I didn't play my best golf, and I ended up almost in the top 10, or in the top 10, I guess,” she said.

“So, yeah, hopefully this is just the start of a really good 2022 season.”

At the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, Lucas Herbert continued the Australian trend for the week of saving their best for the final round with a round of the day 68 playing alongside Adam Scott.

Herbert’s four-under par round came in stifling heat at Bay Hill and it catapulted him into a tie for seventh at two-under - three shots behind winner Scottie Scheffler.

“I'm pretty proud of myself for today's round. It was very, very hot out there. Obviously, you can watch it on TV, and everyone's going to see it. There's no room to hit bad shots out there. You get pretty heavily punished if you get it offline or get your yardage into the green or whatnot,” Herbert said. 

“Very, very proud of the way I played out there. Really proud to hopefully finish in the top ten in my first time here at Bay Hill. Yeah, it's been a bit of a slow start to the year, so it's good to sort of get a nice result in, hopefully build on some confidence going forward.”

It was not the first time Herbert had played with Scott as the pair played a number of rounds together on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast when the pandemic shut down the global tours and they returned home.

“We almost kind of started our own tour. 100 bucks in each Friday to all the courses around in the local area. It was pretty good,” Herbert said of their rounds at Peregian Springs, Twin Waters, Beerwah, Noosa Springs and Pelican Waters.

“We were playing with like amateurs that were up there at the time, veteran Tour pros, Tour pros that are sort of trying to make it on Tour, and guys like Scotty. We had a really nice mix. It was so casual and so laid back. I thought it was great.

“We kind of had handicaps. So like Scotty was plus 6. I was plus 5. Some of the other guys would get a few shots here and there too. Actually, Pete Senior played one day, and they gave him scratch. That was a disgrace because he's not a scratch handicap. He should have been plus 4.”

The PGA Tour was also in action at the Puerto Rico Open and Australian duo Cameron Percy and Mark Hensby finished in a share of seventh at 11-under.

Like Lee, Green and Herbert, Percy produced a stunning final round - a six-under par 66 - that included seven birdies as he surged 29 places up the leaderboard to mirror his tie for seventh at the same event last year.

Hensby’s final round 69 also pushed him into the top ten of a tournament for the first time since 2015.

Rod Pampling rounded out the Australian top-ten finishes with a tied tenth result at the Champions Tour’s Hoag Classic in California. 

Pampling produced a very consistent week with rounds of 69, 70, and 70 to finish four-under, but he was 11 shots back from winner Retief Goosen.

Todd Sinnott was the best of the Australians at the Asian Tour’s International Series Thailand shooting 17-under to end the week tied 16th.

Results

LPGA Tour

HSBC Women’s World Championship

Sentosa Golf Club (Tanjong Cse), Singapore

Winner Jin Young Ko   69-67-69-66-271      $255,000

T2        Minjee Lee       71-69-70-63-273      $138,747

T6        Hannah Green 74-69-66-66-275      $50,923

T23      Lydia Ko (NZ)  69-72-72-67-281       $17,464           

T26      Su Oh              69-70-71-72-282      $14,428

T56      Sarah Kemp     75-71-73-73-292      $5,019

PGA Tour

Arnold Palmer Invitational

Bay Hill Club and Lodge, Orlando, Florida

Winner Scottie Scheffler 70-73-68-72-283    $2,160,000

T7        Lucas Herbert     73-71-74-68-286    $405,000

T26      Adam Scott         68-76-74-74-292    $96,600

T52      Matt Jones          70-75-76-75-296    $29,400

T61      Danny Lee (NZ)  73-74-77-74-298    $26,760

T68      Marc Leishman   70-73-78-78-299    $25,080

MC       Cam Davis          75-76-151

MC       Min Woo Lee      75-82-157

Puerto Rico Open

Grand Reserve Golf Club, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico

Winner Ryan Brehm       66-67-68-67-268  $666,000

T7        Cameron Percy  72-68-71-66-277  $97,256.25

T7        Mark Hensby      70-67-71-69-277  $97,256.25

T28      Aaron Baddeley  67-72-69-72-280  $25,345

T41      Greg Chalmers   68-71-70-74-283  $13,151.45

T50      Brett Drewitt        71-71-73-69-284  $9,316.60

DP World Tour

Magical Kenya Open

Muthaiga Golf Club, Nairobi, Kenya

Winner Ashun Wu        69-68-66-65-268  €297,500

65        Blake Windred  71-68-74-74-287  €3,937.50

Asian Tour

International Series Thailand

Black Mountain Golf Club, Prachaubkhirikhan, Thailand

Winner Sihwan Kim               62-72-65-63-262  $270,000

T16      Todd Sinnott              66-68-68-69-271  $18,300

T32      Denzel Ieremia (NZ)  66-72-69-66-273  $11,116.67

T32      Wade Ormsby           67-70-66-70-273  $11,116.67

T46      Andrew Dodt             69-68-69-69-275  $7,950

T46      Ben Campbell (NZ)   65-68-68-74-275  $7,950

T56      Josh Younger            68-70-71-69-278  $5,550

T56      Kevin Yuan                70-67-71-70-278  $5,550

T62      Andrew Martin           71-66-68-76-281  $4,725

MC       Jake Higginbottom    69-70-139

MC       Scott Strange            68-72-140

MC       Scott Hend                69-71-140

MC       Cory Crawford           69-74-143

MC       Ben Eccles                72-73-145

MC       Daniel Fox                 74-74-148

MC       Will Heffernan            76-72-148

RTD     Travis Smyth              73

Epson Tour

Florida’s Natural Charity Classic

Country Club of Winter Haven, Winter Haven, Florida

Winner Kum Kang Park         70-67-70-207

T28      Amelia Garvey (NZ)   73-73-72-218

T28      Gabriela Ruffels         74-71-73-218

T56      Soo Jin Lee                72-72-79-224

MC       Hira Naveed               77-77-154

Champions Tour

Hoag Classic

Newport Beach Country Club, Newport Beach, California

Winner Retief Goosen    68-67-63-198 $300,000

T10      Rod Pampling     69-70-70-209 $52,000

T52      Stuart Appelby    69-75-72-216 $5,400

T69      Stephen Leaney  71-76-75-222 $1,880

75        David McKenzie  79-71-75-225 $1,240