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Pebble Beach, Calif. – Charlie Hull is a fidgety, intense fidget. It does not do well with stopping, or standing still.
“The biggest problem with me is that I get bored on the golf course,” Hall said after the third round of the US Women’s Open on Saturday. She said drinking helped her avoid impatience.
The next day, you didn’t need ocean vistas. I found another way to keep things from getting boring.
Hull awoke just after sunrise for the final on Sunday knowing that pyrotechnics would be required. She was equal of the week, seven shots from behind leader Nasa Hatooka. The prospect was exciting.
“It’s so much fun,” she said. “I quite enjoy chasing someone because you have to make birdies and you have to make a step up the leaderboard.”
I sniffed some breakfast – “just to get some good food in me” – backed off and hit the range. Hall said that this practice is boring for her too. On Sunday, though, her band session was eventful. As Hull and playing partner Angel Yin were wrapping up warm-ups, an unknown man, wielding a quiver of clubs, trespassed onto the training ground, apparently intent on hitting shots. Security quickly took him away, causing a slight commotion. But if Hull was distracted, she wouldn’t show up when she reached the first tee.
Hull, 27, does everything quickly. Play fast. He walks fast. Earlier this year, when she was preparing to take her driving test in her native England (okay, she was slow to get the licence), her coach told her the first thing to do was put out the gas.
On Sunday, it started like a rocket. Eagle on the second. Back-to-back birdie on 3rd and 4. She scrambled after the tee shots, leaving Yin 50 yards in her wake.
Hull is from Kettering, an industrial town north of London, and her accent is more working-class than Buckingham Palace. In 2019, she married a mixed martial arts fighter. On Pebble Sunday, the glow she wore when she scanned the leaderboards was the look of someone fixing a steel cage brawl.
It was deadly in the encounters, with Solheim Cooper making his five-time debut at the event at the age of 17, and crushing Paula Cramer 5&4 in Sunday’s singles.
But Pebble wasn’t playing a game. Hal can only do so much.
“I thought if I could make it to seven or eight, maybe there would be a chance,” she said. “But I knew I was going to need some help.”
She was five-under after being 15, but was three shots short of the lead, now held by Alison Corpuz. Hull was running out of time. 3 woods followed by a wedge left her to the 16th green with a 30-foot putt. As she gushed at the bird, and the crowd erupted, Hal allowed herself a smile that disappeared as soon as she appeared.
The US Women’s Open was hailed as a turning point, the first time the event had been held in Pebble. It was a pivotal occasion. But the coupling of tournament and venue also bears implicit comparisons: Finally, it’s gone, the world’s best golfers will compete on a legendary course known for hosting men’s golf.
As it happened, Hull’s leadership rested on 18 behind the right-center cypress of the fairway, evoking memories of a defining moment in the men’s game, at the 2010 US Open, when Tiger Woods found himself in a similar position. Hull wasted no time settling on the aggressive option.
“Shy girls don’t get sweets,” she told the can. Like Woods, she played woods—a drawing shot that, in her case, was left in the bunker, just shy of the narrow opening to the green. She thought she needed an eagle to have an outward appearance, which made Hal her equal. tie for a second.
boring.
She said afterwards: “I don’t play second.”
She looked tense. She had a plane to catch at her next event.