It was an ideal start to 2023 for Golf Town Athlete Brooke Henderson – and now she’s going to try to recreate some January magic!
The 2024 LPGA Tour season kicks off this week with the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions where Brooke is the defending champion.
Brooke won by four shots last year at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club after shooting a 16-under 272, topping Maja Stark and Charley Hull. Nelly Korda was five shots back at 11 under and in fourth.
The win was the 13th of Brooke’s LPGA Tour career, and she won the season opener in wire-to-wire fashion.
“It’s super exciting. Coming into this week I couldn’t have asked for anything more. It was kind of the dream start,” Brooke said.
“I love this championship. It’s so unique and fun to play alongside the celebrities and amateurs and a really cool atmosphere. Always really wanted to win this one, so happy I finally got it.”
The rest of Brooke’s season was solid, and she ended up 15th on the LPGA Tour’s Race to CME Globe. She enters 2024 ranked 13th in the world.
Although Brooke didn’t end up winning again last year, she had eight top-15 finishes – including three at major championships.
She and fellow Canadian Corey Conners ended 2023 in spectacular fashion finishing second as a team at the Grant Thornton Invitational, the first PGA Tour-LPGA Tour co-sanctioned event since 1999.
Now Brooke – who will celebrate her 10th year as a professional golfer in December – is looking for even more success over the next 12 months. While she is hoping for a successful title defense in Orlando, Brooke is also a lock to represent Canada at the Olympics in Paris this summer. It will be her third time at the Games. She finished tied for seventh her Olympic debut in 2016 and tied for 29th at Tokyo 2020.
The Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions will once again kick-start the LPGA Tour season for the sixth time. Danielle Kang won the event in 2022, the first time it was played at Lake Nona.
The field once again features all of the winners from the LPGA Tour the last two seasons. There will be 43 golfers teeing it up at Lake Nona led by reigning Player of the Year Lilia Vu. Vu won four times in 2023 – including two majors en route to skyrocketing to No.1 in the world. Other impressive notables who are looking to keep up their momentum from 2023 at the 2024 season opener include Celine Boutier (who also won four times last year), Ruoning Yin (a major winner and who reached No.1 in the world in September), Jin Young Ko and Korda (both ranked No.1 at one point in 2023), and Atthaya Thitikul (who notched 13 top-10 finishes and had the best Scoring Average of anyone last year).
Brooke is, however, firmly in the mix as one of the game’s best players as well. Look for her to be bagging the new gear from TaylorMade, as she immediately put the new Qi10 driver in her bag late last year after some initial work. She tested it further at the Grant Thornton Invitational and loved it.
So, it’s a new year and Brooke has some new gear. However, her goal of climbing the LPGA Tour leaderboards remain the same!
Brooke will tee it up at the Tournament of Champions in Orlando before the LPGA Tour heads across the state to Bradenton, Florida for the LPGA Drive On Championship, the second event of the year. The LPGA will then take a one-month break before it heads to Asia for three tournaments.