Defending ANZ Ladies Masters champion Katherine Hull is three months into her second golfing "marriage" - and loving it.

After 'divorcing' caddy Johnny Powell, whom she jokingly suggested she was "close to strangling", the 28-year-old Queenslander is now in a new relationship with jovial Irish caddy Vern Tess.

Hull had a great start to 2009, winning the Masters, but was unable to back up her million-dollar year in 2008 with Powell by her side.

The bubbly Hull, who still made 20 cuts from 25 tournaments on the LPGA Tour, attributed her lack of success to several "distractions" after falling well short of her goal of finishing in the LPGA's top 10.

"I got distracted and it just didn't happen," said Hull, who'll defend her crown against the best field assembled in the tournament's 21 years, including three of the four major winners.

"I bought a house and fired a caddy at the start of a major (Nabisco). I think they were pretty big distractions."

An intense character, Powell was on Hull's bag when she romped away with last year's Masters but their working relationship hit the skids after that.

In the end, Hull's decision to sack him wasn't such a hard one.

"At the point I did it, it wasn't that hard because I was about to strangle him," she said laughing.

Apart from a few issues with his accent, Hull is rapt to have found a replacement with whom she has clicked so quickly.

"He's funny. I think he knows my personality more than any of my previous caddies," she said.

"He knows how to react to me and handle me and I've loved every day working with him."

Hull said the player-caddie relation was "huge" because of the enormous amount of time they spend together.

"A lot of people do refer to it as like a marriage," she said.

"We're not easy to deal with on a normal day, let alone on a day when our hormones are racing.

"They have to know when to be quiet, when to step in, when to coach, when to be a sports psychologist and when to be a punching bag.

"It's not an easy job."

Hull, who is implementing a minor swing adjustment to give her more power, said defending this week would be very difficult but a challenge she was relishing.

Organisers were forced to call off Wednesday's pro-am event after south-east Queensland was lashed by heavy rain and there is no sign of it easing until the weekend.

"It won't be easy with the weather but we're all in the same boat," Hull said.

"I am the hunted and the hunter because this is the best field in the history of the event so it's not going to be an easy title to defend."

Meanwhile, Karrie Webb has mellowed a little over time but her thirst for more majors and to be world No.1 again are as fierce as when she first burst onto the scene.

Webb, looking fit and showing the benefits of an extended break, will shoot for a seventh ANZ Ladies Masters title at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast this week in a positive mood following some tuition from her Brisbane-based coach Ian Triggs.

Her career may be entering its third decade, and she may no longer be the top dog on the women's tour she once dominated, but the fire still burns.

At the height of her career in 1999-2001, Webb was the hottest player in the world, winning 16 tournaments. After two winless seasons in 2007-08, she finally broke back into the winner's list last year with a victory in the Phoenix International, her 36th LPGA Tour victory.

"I think I'm still as good a player as I've ever been," she said. "I definitely hope that's in my future, I know I'm capable of it."

Hull's and Webb's bid for the Masters has been made slightly easier with pre-tournament favourite Suzann Pettersen, of Norway, withdrawing with a hip injury.