Hannah Green set to defend JM Eagle LA Championship Title

By Emily Cho

TARZANA, Calif. – What’s better than two wins? Three. But what’s better than three wins? Making history.

Two-time tournament champion Hannah Green returns to the JM Eagle LA Championship to defend her title for the third year.

Green says she’s in a good mental space and pleased with her ball striking today, but is striving to be even better this week. When asked what score she thinks she’ll need to defend her title, her answer was simple: “I have no idea.”

“There could be so many tricky pins that they could put them in,” Green said. “I was fortunate enough to do media day here a couple weeks ago and go and play the course, so I think that was helpful.”

Currently ranked No. 5 in the world, Green is paired to play with world No. 1, Nelly Korda tomorrow, whom she has played with in the past.

Green joked that she’s curious to see if her host dad’s enthusiastic cheering will be able to top all of Korda’s fans in the crowd.

“It’s more a bit of a yell…he likes to be the loudest person to cheer for me. He’s come out to watch me every year, so a bit of a good luck charm.”

Although she is sometimes surprised to be in the top 10 in the world, Green grounds herself by avoiding putting too much pressure on herself—even with history on the line. With a win this week, she would be the first player to win the same tournament three times in a row since Inbee Park won the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2013, 2014, and 2015.

“It's definitely been on my mind…I would love to have my name in history,” Green said. “I've got a good group tomorrow. I think that'll help with the situation. But hopefully, I can be in contention if not maybe leading on Sunday to be able to achieve that.”

Green tees off with Nelly Korda and Madelene Sagstrom at 7:59 am on hole 10. She’ll also be donating $500 for each birdie and $1,000 for each eagle she makes this week to local fire recovery efforts.

“I saw Max Homa was doing some donations…but I just felt like it wasn’t right to do it at the time in Florida not being in LA,” said Green. “Hopefully just bringing some awareness gives me some more motivation throughout the week to make some more birdies, and hopefully other people can jump on board as well.”

As the Masters came to an exciting end this past weekend, with Rory McIlroy not only taking home the win but also earning his career Grand Slam title, the golf focus shifts from Augusta to Los Angeles. The LPGA Tour’s JM Eagle LA Championship presented by Plastpro is set to begin this upcoming Thursday, and this year the tournament has a special focus.

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