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Englishwoman’s five-under 67 has handed her a one-shot advantage over world No 1 Nelly Korda and China’s Ruoning Yin
If any round of golf taking 6hr 8min can be described as enthralling and have the departing spectators craving for more, then Charley Hull somehow managed it on the first day of the AIG Women’s Open here on Thursday.
The Englishwoman’s five-under 67 handed her a one-shot advantage and provided more substance to the conviction that the 28-year-old is not only maturing into the golfer the game has always known she could be, but that as well as the worst intentions of Mother Nature, she can also stand up to the snail-pace monstrosity of Father Time.
To be clear, until recently, Hull was not a fan of windy seaside golf and, as one of the quickest on Tour, absolutely hates it when the progress on an 18-holer feels more like the M74 being tarmacked from Glasgow to Gretna.
Hull started at 1.19pm and finished at 7.27pm and in that period, with the winds gusting above 40mph and the players fairly tripping over each other as they backed up, the Old Course became decidedly older. With all its history, the Home of Golf has a habit of making time stand still – but not this still.
In fairness, because of the nature of this hallowed layout and the harshness of the conditions, the fault cannot wholly be blamed on the over-meticulous modern competitor. And along with Hull’s rapidity, her playing companions, Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu, are classed among the hares rather than the tortoises.
Their haste – or, at least, wish for it – made the threeball yet more enticing to watch and for once the marquee group lived up to its pitch. Korda is one behind Hull, alongside China’s Ruoning Yin, with Vu in the long-jam one further back on three-under.
Consider that Korda is the world No 1 with six victories already this year and that Vu, another American, is the world No 2 and the defending champion and realise how valiantly Hull performed to outscore this duo, particularly when they both looked at the very top of their form. Certainly, the audience appreciated her typically all-action efforts.
When Hull holed her six-footer for a birdie on the famous 18th, with the lights flickering on in the R&A clubhouse as the backdrop, a huge cheer resounded up to and around the Auld Grey Toon and at that stage it all seemed possible.
Hull is a showperson and was beaming as she faced the media. Never mind doubting that she could survive a golfing and mental challenge as arduous as this not so long ago – before her long-time coach Matt Belsham urged her to perfect the three-quarter swing and the knocked down shot – Hull did not think this sort of score was feasible even in the minutes before she ventured out.
“I was on the range and saw the scores, and I thought, ‘how is she [Yin] four-under – that’s unbelievable’,” Hull said. “I thought they were going to call it off at any minute. So would I have taken five-under then? In a heartbeat.”
Hull and the later starters probably enjoyed the best of it in the final hour as the winds died and at least one of the morning crew thought that the early brigade being kept on had been unfair. “We were on No 11 and our balls were moving on the green,” Aberdonian Gemma Dryburgh said after a 79. “My ball moved twice before I putted. I don’t know how they thought it was playable, to be honest.”
Dryburgh’s Solheim Cup teammate Georgia Hall vehemently disagreed. But then, the 2018 Women’s Open champion is a links sadist and is never happier than when it is blowing, as she showed in her 71. In a rousing opening for English golf, Lottie Woad, the 20-year-old who won the Augusta National Women’s Amateur in April, re-emphasised her comfort on the biggest, and most cherished, stages by shooting a 72.
However, it was Hull who was the last woman standing in this blustery marathon. “The worst bit was the 30-minute wait on the 11th tee,” Hull said. “But it was ok, I had a wee and chatted to James [Northern], who is my best friend and my brother-in-law. I bet my caddie [Adam Woodward] that it would take more than 6hrs. I was right, he was wrong. So a win-win day.”