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Webb, Senior lead Aust golf major charge

3 minute read

The LPGA and Champions Tours host major championships this week where a handful of Australian golfers will look to end a long drought.

A week before the focus shifts to Australian golf's tilt at the US Open, the country's best women and senior players face major challenges of their own.

Both the LPGA and Champions Tours host the second major of their seasons this week, giving a handful of Aussies a chance to break the country's six-year drought.

Karrie Webb headlines four Australian women at the LPGA Championship to be held at Locust Hill Country Club in Pittsford, New York, while Peter Senior tees off in the Regions Tradition at Shoal Creek in Birmingham, Alabama.

Sarah Jane Smith, Wendy Doolan and Katherine Hull will join Webb, the 2001 champion and seven-time major champion, as they try to win Australia's first major since 2006.

Geoff Ogilvy won the 2006 US Open at Winged Foot, while Webb also captured the Kraft Nabisco Championship in the same year - the last time an Australian won a major on any level.

Webb and company won't have it easy with world No.1 Yani Tseng returning as defending champion after blitzing the field by 10 strokes in 2011.

Her main rival appears to be American Stacy Lewis, a winner in two of her past three starts including last week's Shoprite LPGA Classic where she held off Hull by four strokes.

Hull takes confidence from her best finish since winning in 2010 and hopes the momentum continues into this week's major where her best finish was a tie for 16th in 2009.

Senior lost the 2011 Regions Tradition in a playoff to Tom Lehman, leaving the veteran still without a win in the US, and Australia without a senior tour major since Stewart Ginn took out the 2002 Senior Players Championship.

American Michael Allen, a two-time Champions Tour winner already in 2012 and a US Open qualifier, is the favourite along with countrymen Jay Haas, Fred Couples and Lehman.

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