only five girls making a
comfortable living, if they only
chose to play in Europe. That is
tough.”
Being in MacLaren’s company it
is clear she is obsessive about her
sport. As a teenager, she was
academic, a voracious reader and
had considered applying to Oxfordor Cambridge. Yet the lure of golf
was too much for her. Instead, she
took up a golf scholarship at
Florida International University
and it was during that time – as she,
like many young people, often felt
“like I was on the outside looking
in” – that she discovered her
passion for writing.
Despite being easy company,Sport Women’s British Open
Hull keeps calm for
‘toughest week’ at
home-course Open
By James Corrigan
GOLF CORRESPONDENT
at Woburn
The weight of hope on Charley
Hull’s shoulders here is not quite on
the Rory McIlroy at Portrush level,
but still Mel Reid expects her coun-
trywoman to feel the crush when
the AIG Women’s British Open tees
off on the Marquess Course
this morning.
“I think this is probably the
toughest week that she’s ever had
because of the expectations and
because it is her home course,”
Reid said. “Out of everyone in the
field, this will be toughest for her.
Obviously I’m competitive, but I do
hope Charley plays well this week.
For her and for Woburn.”
Hull, 23, has been a Woburn
member for nearly a decade and
wears her association with pride, as
of course does the Buckingham-
shire course itself.
Three years ago, when “The Brit-
ish” was last hosted on the Duke of
Bedford’s woodland estate, the
Englishwoman discovered the bur-
den of anticipation.
McIlroy suffered his disaster on
the first hole of the first round of the
Open two weeks ago, while Hull’s
did not occur until the first hole of
the third round. The triple-bogey
seven on the Saturday effectively de-
railed her challenge and she trailed
home in a tie for 17th. Hardly disas-
trous, but not what the galleries had
been expecting from their darling.
Hull is not the type to dwell on
things and claims to remember
very little from the week. “I liter-
ally can’t,” she said. “I just remem-
ber that my passport and my phone
got stolen out of my car. I think my
dad actually left the car unlocked.”
However, she does recall the
frenzied build-up within the club-
house and, as golfers always
should, she has chosen to keep her
head down this time around. “Be-
fore I’d play the course a lot, and
I’d be down here a lot and feel like
a lot of the pressure is on me, but
[now I know] it’s not really at all,”
she said. “There’s loads of golfers
in the field that are in it to win it,
and I just feel I’m just going to go
out there and enjoy the whole
experience.
“I’ve not been here as much. I’ve
only played the Marquess course
twice this year. In fact, I took Mon-day off and didn’t come down, and
I’m only playing nine holes today.
I’m just trying to get my work done
and go back to the hotel. I want to
enjoy the experience.”
It might be easier for Hull to do
so because of the other English
females also fancied to do well.
Bronte Law, the 24-year-old from
Stockport, is the highest ranked
Briton at 22, while Hull is world
No 27, and Georgia Hall is 30th.
Hall’s success at Lytham last year
inspired Hull to believe she, too,
can lift a major title.
“One hundred per cent it
spurred me on,” Hull said. “It mademe work harder, because I want to
try to win one as well. Georgia and
I have been friends since we were
young. So it was really good.”
Add in players of the quality of
Reid, Jodi Ewart Shadoff, Char-
lotte Thomas and Meghan
MacLaren and the flag of St George
is fluttering here perhaps more
proudly than ever.
“I’ve never seen English golf
this strong,” Reid said. “I mean,
hopefully we’re going to have
maybe four, maybe five girls on the
Europe Solheim Cup team [to play
the United States in September]
from England, which is pretty
amazing, really.”
The odds, however, are firmly
on a South Korean champion,
which would be the fourth major
for the country this year. The fa-
vourite is last week’s Evian Cham-
pionship winner, Ko Jin-young.
That was the 24-year-old’s second
major success of 2019 and here she
has the chance to become just the
seventh player of either gender to
complete a hat-trick in the same
campaign.
Babe Zaharias, Ben Hogan,
Mickey Wright, Pat Bradley, Tiger
Woods and Inbee Park are the leg-
ends she can join. And Karen Stup-
ples, a former Women’s British
Open champion, herself, believes
that playing back-to-back majors
can either be a help or a hindrance
to Ko.
“The advantage of somebody
like a Ko Jin-young that played
well is that that form can continue
and you can ride that wave,” Stup-
ples said. “It’s just how much she
can conserve her energy in terms
of holding it together through to
the final round and finishing the
deal off. Winning back-to-back
weeks is tough, but winning back-
to-back majors is even tougher.”British hope spurred on
by Hall’s victory last year
South Korean Ko tipped
for third major of season
Charley Hull’s three favourite holes at Woburn
420 yards, par 4
I always like the difficult holes on a golf course,
the ones that challenge you and aren’t boring.
The third is a case in point. You have to get
a good drive away, and it's not the
easiest shot in.3
9
3
430 yards, par 4
Visually, this is a great hole, with the elevation
changes and being able to see the fields behind.
Again, the drive is important because it’s downhill
to the green and you will need to be able to
control the approach.9
198 yards, par 3
A tough, long par three that
comes at a vital part of the
round. It could be a four-iron
or even a rescue club but
the ball-striking has to be spot
on to get near the flag on
a huge, rolling green.14
14
I would have to
‘Guys will have
equipment thrown
at them. The girls
will struggle to
get 10 per cent off ’
A
s a young
collegiate golfer
based in Miami,
Meghan
MacLaren used
to occasionally
bump into the
owner of a local
golf resort. The
courses were at Doral, frequent
host of PGA events, and the
proprietor was a certain Donald
Trump.
This was in the mid 2010s as
Trump was making his political
ascent.
MacLaren, despite establishing
herself as an activist for gender
equality in professional golf, does
not mind admitting that the future
president held a certain charm.
“I played at Doral,” she says. “I
bumped into him a few times
before he was president and he
came across as really nice in those
interactions.”
Yet, due to her strong
convictions about women’s rights,
she would refuse a round of golf at
Trump International at West Palm
Beach where the president has
previously played with Rory
McIlroy, Tiger Woods and recently
the top-ranked American woman
Lexi Thompson. What if the
hypothetical round could be used
as a platform for issues in women’s
golf? But the 25-year-old remains
resolute.
“It is like with anything, you
wouldn’t hang around with people
who you strongly disagree with. If
people said things you didn’t like
and made you feel uncomfortable,
you wouldn’t want to spend time
with them.
“I want to make sure I always
represent what I have said, I just
want to be genuine, that is why I
think people pay attention.
“If I am in a situation where I
feel like I am compromising any of
that, I won’t do it.”
Over the past number of years
using her personal blog, the
Englishwoman, who is a member
at Woburn where the AIG
Women’s British Open is teeing off
today, has tackled many topics in
golf from Woods’s comeback to
issues specific to the women’s
game and even more particular to
women’s golf in Europe.
While the LPGA thrives, the
Ladies’ European Tour (LET) is
stagnating, with a lack of events
and investments coupled with top
players such as defending Open
champion Georgia Hall opting to
play in the United States.
As a result, the LET lacks
exposure to entice sponsors, and
players find it difficult to earn a
decent living. “It doesn’t sit right
with me that you can have 200
guys in Europe making a
comfortable salary, and I am
generalising a bit because some do
struggle, but there are probablyThe president was ‘really
nice’, Meghan MacLaren
tells Kate Rowan, but she
is sticking to her beliefs
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Local knowledge:
Charley Hull has
been a Woburn
member for nearly
a decade12 *** Thursday 1 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
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