Australian Queens Take the International Crown

Hannah Green contributed just one point for Team Australia en route to their victory at the International Crown, and it was a crucial one. Matched against American Yealimi Noh and her 3-0-1 record, Green's putter finally warmed up. A birdie on the 17th closed out Noh, and with Minjee Lee's win a few minutes earlier against Angel Yin, the Crown now belongs to the Aussies. Green's point total was lacking, but she served her role as the team mom well, guiding and motivating less experienced players Steph Kyriacou and Grace Kim. Fellow veteran Lee, who preferred the title of "Aunt," had no problem racking up wins and deservedly took home MVP honors after going 4-0-1. They were a formidable team on paper, owning two of this year's five majors. Add to that their genuine camaraderie and friendship, and it's quite surprising this is their first International Crown win.

Taking a page from this year's LPGA playbook, a win by the Australians continues the Crown's own streak of no repeat winners. The event now boasts the most well-rounded field in all of professional golf's team competitions with this year's addition of the World Team. From the start of the week, Lydia Ko and Brooke Henderson were fully engaged in the event, having spent years watching from the sidelines. After Ko helped the World Team win its consolation match against Japan, she spoke about how upset she was to have let teammate Wei-Ling Hsu down in the semifinals with an errant tee shot on the second playoff hole. The trio, along with Charley Hull, quickly gelled and thoroughly enjoyed testing out the new experiment.

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The addition of the World Team certainly helped the Crown regain some of the momentum it had before a Covid-induced five-year break. There's still more to accomplish on that front, though. For American audiences, the timing of this year's event was awful. Only true die-hard golf fans have the sport on their radars in late October. A tiny fraction of that is tuned into women's golf. Going up against the meat of the football calendar and the start of the World Series is not a recipe for attracting new fans.

Another question to answer revolves around the format. Three rounds of fourball pool play led to a Sunday of singles and foursomes matches. Some of the best players in the game playing high-stakes alt shot on the final day is a strong differentiator for the Crown compared to other team competitions. When it's combined with singles matches going on at the same time, it's a recipe for confusion for the casual fans. In the Crown's brief existence, it's already made format tweaks to try and produce exciting finishes and engage fans. Foursomes certainly belong somewhere in the week, but the code hasn't been cracked just yet.

It's been 11 years since Mike Whan's brainchild entered the golf landscape. Coming into its tween stage, there's still an awkwardness to the event. It feels like the International Crown just got its braces off. Things look better, but it's definitely gonna need a second set of wires and brackets and there's probably going to be a bad haircut in between before the job is done. The potential is there for it to mature and rival the Solheim Cup in size and importance, but there is no substitute for time. For now, the LPGA has to get the right format figured out and optimize the calendar to set the Crown up to succeed.