Golf Town Athlete Brooke Henderson nearly won the first event of the LPGA Tour season but gained a ton of confidence – and momentum – as the 2022 campaign gets started.

Brooke shot a 2-under 70 on Sunday to finish at 13-under overall at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions. She ended up in second place alone to Danielle Kang, who won for the sixth time on the LPGA Tour.

Brooke didn’t make a bogey in her final 36 holes. On a cold day in central Florida, Brooke birdied two par 3s on Sunday but wasn’t quite able to climb the leaderboard.

Still, a second-place result at the opening event of the season left her excited for what else was to come in 2022. The LPGA Tour has two more events in Florida – next week it is about two hours south, in Boca Raton – before heading to Asia. Brooke will be in all those tournaments.

“For the most part I think I did a lot of things really well, and couple things that I really focused on in the off-season, like I said, have paid off at least in the first week, so that’s really exciting,” said Brooke. “Still proud of how we played out there today in those tough conditions.

“Danielle played amazing, so (it was) pretty cool to watch her go so far ahead of everybody else.”

Indeed, Kang made three birdies in a row on No’s 13-15 and her 4-under 68 was the round of the day Sunday.

“I feel great about a lot of the work that I’ve done it. I’m so thankful for my team. It takes a village to get here, so still feels a little bit surreal,” said Kang. “My mental game was really good. I had a really good attitude all day today and yesterday. I know I left some putts out there, but I never let it get to me and I kept having to give myself birdie chances as much as possible.”

Brooke said the switch to the TaylorMade TP5x golf ball has already played dividends. And, she said her comfort level with putting with the flagstick in has also been improved – that was new for 2022, too.

“I came into this week thinking I had put in some solid work in the off-season, so nice to see that it’s paying off,” said Brooke. “Hopefully I can use momentum over the next couple weeks and get a couple more top finishes.”

Gaby Lopez finished third, while world No.1 Nelly Korda struggled to a 3-over 75 on Sunday and she, along with Celine Boutier, finished tied for fourth.

19-year-old Yuka Saso, who won last year’s U.S. Women’s Open, finished sixth. She was paired with Brooke on Sunday and said she was so impressed with Brooke’s game.

“We played few times. Yes, she’s a very nice person. Lovely to talk to. Yeah, good person to play with,” said Saso. “And I had a lot of things to learn from her. Obviously, she’s champion and major winner, too. Yeah it was amazing.”