PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Charley Hull plays golf like you can. She doesn’t look at the pin sheet. She does not keep a yard book. And when her golf wasn’t perfect the first two days in Women’s US OpenHer mindset was probably a bit of what you tell yourself on the golf course, too:
“Shut him off.”
The full quote has a little more context, so we’ll provide that below, but the mindset speaks Charley Hull in full. She is a striker. A follower. She likes Move Day because it’s “more fun” to be in the chase.
“I played really well actually the first two days — tee to green,” she said Saturday afternoon. “I just couldn’t get a layup, so I just hung in there and just went for everything today and I just thought, fk that.
This is where Hull golf differs from the average person, however, because fk that for him it is not only to play aggressively, but also to double this aggressiveness. Going after every pin on Riviera Country Club and in fact it will probably succeed in doing so.
She drove to the green on the 3rd, birdied the 6th and 7th, drove it to the edge of the green on the 10th, dropped her approach to four feet on the 14th, reached the par-5 17th in two and closed it out with another perfect approach on the 18th. Seven birdies, one bogey, 65 – the best score of the week. And nothing really close to what she was feeling going in.
“No, I didn’t feel well,” she said. “I didn’t at all. I’m glad I had my cousin here with me because we just did things to take my mind off golf.”
Hull is, like most professionals, a golf fanatic. She is back in the UK after this weekend and will go on a golf trip with her boyfriend. She’ll sit up at night — “fidgety” was her way of describing it — watching videos of her swinging on her phone.
“I just study everything by thinking I like this feeling, I like that feeling, why can’t it be like this? Sometimes you just have to cancel all of that and just not think about anything.”
Or just think ‘Fk it’.
That’s the charm of Hull. It is one by one. She does things her way. Sometimes it catches fire. Sometimes it’s as great as that Saturday 65.
It has been a growing year for Hull. She won in February and jumped to No. 3 in the world, but has struggled recently, missing multiple cuts in a month for the first time in three years. She arrived in LA not feeling well about her game and has been spending time with her cousin, Jodie, to get away from it all.
“She thought it was going to be this wonderful place and she had this dream,” Hull said with her cousin standing nearby, on the verge of laughter. “You know how Barbie movie where you see people walking in circles going out into the ocean? And we got down there and I said, ‘We’re in Malibu.’ She says, “No we’re not.” I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah we are.’ She was like ‘My lifelong dream is falling apart!’ She is devastated. It was absolutely hilarious.”
Hull loves to travel with family and seems to get as much out of family time as any professional. She will return home at times – to England’s Midlands, north of London – just to spend time with family between events. This week, it’s skirmishes with her cousin that keep her from stressing too much about golf, and she only has a few 18-hole shots to play. Saturday’s performance gave her an afternoon slot for Sunday’s final round, which, frankly, makes for a nice, unhurried evening. The destination is now set: Mexican food, in a city of endless possibilities.
