A previous tournament encounter also played a part in Green’s win. In April, Green gave a signed ball to a young girl, Lily Kostner, who was in her gallery Sunday. On the eighth tee, Lily presented Green with a poem she had written, the theme of which Green later summarized as “You can win this.” During the middle of the round, when Green made three bogeys in four holes, threatening her equanimity, she retrieved Lily’s poem from the back of her yardage book and read it.
“I have to thank Lily for writing that,” Green said. “I think it really helped me.”
A generosity of spirit would appear to be a boomerang, a karmic aid. In 2015, Green received a scholarship, awarded each year by Webb, that provides $10,000 for international travel, lodging with Webb in the United States during a training trip and a week as Webb’s guest at the United States Women’s Open or the Women’s P.G.A. Championship, depending on when the tournaments fall in the summer schedule.
Green attended the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open in Lancaster, Pa., won by In Gee Chun, and came away wiser for having watched how Webb, who tied for 14th, goes about her business. “Being able to stay in a house with her, literally breathing on her, watching everything she does in a tournament — majors — and watching outside the ropes, it definitely gave me a big insight into what it was like,” Green said.
Two years later, Green won three times on the L.P.G.A.’s developmental tour. One day, Green said, she hopes to be able to lend to others the kind of assistance, financial and otherwise, that she has received from Webb, who put her and her boyfriend up at the house she rented for the week. In the meantime, Green does what she can, having learned from watching Webb that even the smallest gestures are meaningful.
It is why she signs autographs for fans like Lily and why she also tried Sunday, even when her hands were shaking from the pressure, to smile at youngsters in the gallery.
“It only takes a second,” Green said, “and it can change someone’s life.”
On Sunday, the kind gestures by Webb, 44, and Green came back to them tenfold.
“This is one of the best days I’ve had at a golf course, especially in the long haul,” said Webb, who had missed the cut by one stroke. After Green’s final putt dropped, Webb rushed the green with other Aussies, who sprayed her with beer from cans.
An hour later, Webb said: “I feel like I won a golf tournament today. I’m so excited for her.”
