‘I’m getting closer to a major – I know what it takes now’
Charley Hull tees it up at Gullane with one eye on next week’s British Open at Lytham, where she burst on the scene aged just 10, writes James Corrigan
Charley Hull has been a prodigy for so long that, now 22, she remembers barely anything from the first time she teed it up on the professional fairways alongside the best players in the world. “Yeah, but I was only 10,” Hull points out.
Those of us who were at Royal Lytham & St Annes that August Wednesday in 2006 only too readily recall the girl from Northamptonshire with her blonde hair poking out from under a bobble hat.
It was the pro-am of the Women’s British Open and she had earned her place to play alongside Morgan Pressel – soon to become the then youngest ever winner of a women’s major as an 18-year-old – by dint of her victory at the British Ladies National Championship nine months before.
Hull, who was nine years old and had to travel to that Turnberry event in a booster seat, actually fell over twice because of the wind raging off the Firth of Clyde, but still she beat a 46-year-old in the final. From then on, the word was that here was a plucky little character who simply would not be blown off course.
That much was confirmed at Lytham as the game at large gained its first glimpse of the ponytailed sensation.
Barely four feet tall, she was cheered on in astonishment by the crowds while, playing up ahead, Annika Sorenstam, arguably the greatest woman golfer of all time, waited to congratulate Hull after a few age and size-defying strikes.
‘It’s a big event with a great field, and of course you want to win. I haven’t played links for a year and I’m looking forward to it’
“I do remember Annika being kind,” Hull says. “And yeah, I remember playing quite well, but that’s about it.
“It’s funny, but that’s my one and only time I’ve played Lytham so far, and all I know is that it starts with a par three.”
Hull will finally return to the Lancashire venue next week as the principal domestic hope to lift the Women’s British Open title, and it would complete the circle very nicely, especially for those who took up the 25-1 odds swiftly posted by bookmakers for that mere slip of a lass to win a major before she turned 25.
Yet first comes this week’s Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open at Gullane, the $1.5million (£1.15million) event co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and LPGA Tour.
Two weeks after the men used the East Lothian layout as the forerunner for the Open Championship, the women follow suit – and Hull cannot wait.
“It’s a big tournament with a great field and of course you want to win, but at the same time it’s the perfect warm-up for the British. I haven’t played on links for a year and have been really looking forward to it. Although, truthfully I didn’t think much of this type of golf as a kid. Maybe it was that the weather always seemed to be cold and rainy, but I preferred whacking it on parkland courses.
“I suppose it was only when I turned pro and was not playing it all the time like I had on the amateur circuit that I realised how much I missed it after all those pattern, target-golf courses in America.”
Hull seems born for the seaside pursuit, what with her ability to control ball-flight and her preference for a searching challenge. This year she has shown how much she relishes golf when it is on the edge, by finishing in the top three of each of the three majors contested so far. At the Ana Inspiration in March she was two shots outside the play-off in sixth, before a highly respectable 10th at the US Women’s Open in June and another sixth place at the Women’s PGA three weeks ago.
There have been some other notable results in 2018, not least her third behind Lydia Ko in the LPGA Mediheal Championship, but the standout displays have been in the weeks that matter most. It is not a coincidence. As they say Stateside, Hull is “trending” and her self-belief levels are as obvious as they are understandable.
“The majors this year have definitely given me confidence going into this two-week stretch,” Hull said. “I’m getting closer and closer and know what it takes now. And I prefer the major golf courses, prefer tougher courses. I don’t like layouts when they’re short and fat, but when they’re long and tight. You get rewarded for good shots