SWEET GEORGIA
Hall is first Brit to win Open for nine years — and dad was caddie!
GEORGIA HALL was joyously embraced by her caddie after becoming the first homegrown player to win the Ricoh Women’s British Open in nine years yesterday.
And to make the moment all the sweeter, the caddie in question was none other than her dad, Wayne.
The golf-mad plasterer named his daughter Georgia when she was born halfway through Nick Faldo and Greg Norman’s epic duel at the Masters at Augusta, Georgia, in 1996. But even Wayne could hardly have believed that 22 years later Georgia, who had never previously tasted victory on the Ladies European Tour or LPGA Tour, would be winning a major of her own after a superb five-under final round of 67 at Royal Lytham.
To cap it, she pocketed the winner’s cheque worth almost £375,000.
Trailing Pornanong Phatlum by a shot overnight, Hall, from Bournemouth, moved clear of the Thai with two holes remaining, and held her nerve to secure victory.
Her bogey on the last hole was her first of the round, and she dropped just three shots in the whole tournament. Hall fought back tears at the presentation ceremony as she dedicated the victory to her grandfather, saying: ‘There’s someone very special at home that’s going through a bad time so this is for you grandad.
‘I’d also like to thank my dad for caddying. Thanks for doing everything for me when I was growing up… and to my mum. And to my boyfriend as well for supporting me.’
In fact boyfriend Harry Tyrrell is normally the one on the bag only for him to be ‘jocked off’ by dad Wayne for this week.
‘Dad’s caddied for me in this for the last four or five years — it is kind of our thing,’ Hall, the world No 39, said earlier in the week. ‘And we played so well together last year that it’s right for him to be on the bag.’
Hall’s victory yesterday meant the 2013 British women’s amateur champion emulated compatriot Karen Stupples (2004) and Scot Catriona Matthew (2009), the other two British winners since this event became a major.
She said: ‘I don’t think it’s all sunk in for me. It was my goal when I was nine years old on the putting green, “This six-footer’s for the British Open” — and to actually have that, I’m over the moon. I’m so happy.’