Fresh off a week under the tutelage of golfing great Karrie Webb, West Australian Maddison Hinson-Tolchard has set her sights on finishing as the top-placed amateur at the US Women's Open.
A rising star in the US college program, the 21-year-old who attends Oklahoma State is one of five Australians, including defending champion Minjee Lee, teeing off on Thursday (early Friday AEST) at the iconic Pebble Beach course in California.
Hinson-Tolchard gained entry to her first major through qualifying and has had the ideal preparation, shadowing Webb at the recent Women's US PGA Championship in New Jersey.
Following in the footsteps of major winners Lee and Hannah Green, Hinson-Tolchard and Queenslander Justice Bosio were named as this year's Karrie Webb Scholarship winners with the trip part of the prize.
"We went to the KPMG and we spent the week with her in New Jersey and it was an awesome week," Hinson-Tolchard said.
"I have played practice rounds with Karrie before at Australian Opens and stuff but I'd never really had the opportunity to get to know her on a personal level.
"The week was really awesome to use her as a resource, to ask a lot of questions.
"She's an amazing woman with all of the success that she's had in her career.
"It was really cool to pick her brains and just see how she's gone about things and hopefully learn as much as I could from that.
"It was really cool to go to the KPMG and experience what a major championship was like and the atmosphere around it all and then now I get to actually play in one myself."
Hinson-Tolchard is Australia's top-ranked amateur female player and is boldly ambitious about her chances at Pebble Beach, where she played last September in a college tournament.
She said she was a "couple under par" at that tournament and while there were challenging holes, felt some low scores were there for the taking.
"I've definitely set myself some goals," Hinson-Tolchard said.
"I want to be the low amateur; I think that would be a really big achievement, and I definitely think finishing inside the top 30 would be awesome for my first major."
