England’s Charley Hull Comes Out Hot at Home of Golf | LPGA

ST ANDREWS, Scotland — There are few tournaments Charley Hull needs to win greater than the AIG Girls’s Open. And thru one spherical on the Outdated Course at St Andrews, she has put herself in fairly the spot to do exactly that on the House of Golf.

Hull placed on a present early in Scotland, carding a near-perfect, 5-under 67 in chilly, windy circumstances on day one of many fifth and last main of the 2024 LPGA Tour season.

The 28-year-old bought off to a quiet begin, parring her first 4 holes of the spherical earlier than choosing up her first birdie of the day on the par-5 fifth gap. Hull erased that effort with a bogey on eight, however she then birdied the par-4 ninth gap to show in 35 at 1-under.

She made one other birdie on 10 and chalked up one other on the par-4 twelfth gap, now at 3-under with six holes to play on the Outdated Course. Hull added one other birdie to her tally on 15 after which practically holed out her second shot on the enduring par-4 18th gap, cleansing up the brief putt for birdie, a lot to the delight of the Scottish crowds and posting her lowest first-round rating since she carded a 67 on day one of many Kroger Queen Metropolis Championship introduced by P&G final season.

“It was a great deal of enjoyable on the market right now,” Hull stated. “Truly, earlier than my spherical, I used to be in there watching it on the TV after I noticed the scores, and I believed, how is she 4-under par? That was an unbelievable rating. I might take that now as a result of it was gusting quite a bit on the vary, and I stated to my coach, it looks like they might name it at any minute as a result of I do not understand how the balls are staying on the greens. To go on the market, shoot 5-under, play fairly strong, it was a number of enjoyable.”

Hull was grouped with Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu within the first spherical and can play with the Nos. 1 and a couple of within the Rolex Girls’s World Golf Rankings once more on Friday. The threesome was a mixed 12-under on day one, and Hull felt just like the three fed off of one another all through the day on the Outdated Course, a sentiment with which her groupmates agreed after ending play on Thursday night.

“I really like taking part in with them two women,” stated Hull. “Nelly is an unbelievable ball striker. Lilia is a good putter. You simply know, even after they’re making some bogeys, you suppose the entire area is discovering this difficult, so that you simply preserve within the second. They’re two fast gamers, as nicely, so I get pleasure from that.”

The Englishwoman completed runner-up to Vu finally 12 months’s AIG Girls’s Open at Walton Heath Golf Membership, a six-shot loss that stung a bit for the native favourite however that has clearly motivated her much more to win what might be thought-about the closest occasion she has to a nationwide open on the LPGA Tour. The solo second is her greatest end in her 12 earlier begins on this main championship, however Hull additionally has 5 different top-25 outcomes on her AIG Girls’s Open resume.

Regardless of her English heritage and her robust previous performances at each this main championship and the ISPS Handa Girls’s Scottish Open, Hull has admitted that hyperlinks golf doesn’t actually go well with her in addition to the tight, tree-lined fairways sometimes discovered on parkland layouts.

However she seems to have found out dance with the satan in current weeks, ending solo fifth final week at Dundonald Hyperlinks and beginning robust in a number of the worst circumstances most of the 144-player area stated they’ve ever performed in at an AIG Girls’s Open or in any other case.

Hull says the important thing has been endurance, one thing she is going to proceed to place a premium on as she prepares to deal with three extra rounds of inauspicious golf at one of the crucial storied venues within the recreation.

“You have simply bought to be affected person. You recognize what it is going to be like earlier than the start of the spherical, so that you simply mentally put together for that earlier than,” stated Hull. “I am proud of (a 67), and I am simply wanting ahead to going out tomorrow and being affected person once more. I’ve at all times been affected person on the market, and I hit some nice, nice photographs.”