There are players who get up extra early to prepare for a morning tee time, then there’s Charley Hull.
Before Hull hit her opening shot around 7:44 a.m. Thursday at the Ford Championship, she:
- “was up at 2:30 (a.m.) because I wanted to speak to my family and that back at home (in England) …
- “ran just a little 7k (on a treadmill) …
- “had some rowing thresholds to do …
- “trained my lower body.”
Hull was in the gym from 4-6 a.m., she said, then went out and shot 9-under 63 to take the first-round lead at Whirlwind Golf Club at Wild Horse.
And (and!), she wasn’t satisfied with her score.
“No,” she said, “I feel like I left, actually, a good four shots out there. Like the last, I lipped on the left edge. The hole before, I left it like an inch short. Went in the jaws on a few holes before and it just stayed out. Then I missed a birdie putt on the front nine, and that was like from like 6 feet. So, I’m looking back thinking, oh, I could have done more.”
Still, she was gracious enough to herself to say, “I putted pretty well. I chipped pretty well. I hit it pretty well with my iron shots. I don’t think I missed a green and didn’t really miss any fairways. I was hitting it good and just felt confident.”
She was particularly pleased with her driver, which she said she “tweaked” at the start of the week and then “really, really, really hit it well today.”
Hull found 11 of 14 fairways, hit all 18 greens in regulation and took 28 putts. She was one clear of Nanna Koerstz Madsen among the early wave in Chandler, Arizona.
Midway through her second nine, Hull gave thought to shooting the LPGA’s second-ever 59 (the first and only, coincidentally, came in Arizona when Annika Sorenstam did so in March 2001). It certainly wasn’t top of mind when she woke up at two-thirty to talk to her family. Hull told her father that the course didn’t really fit her eye, but Dad reminded her she once said the same of the season-finale host venue, and then won the tournament the following year.
That gave her some confidence, as did her boyfriend, who told her, “What will make me happy is seeing you on the top of the leaderboard, and just smash it.” Which she did off the tee, with great confidence.
Hull is trying to end a near three-year winless drought on tour. She was one off the 54-hole lead in her most recent start – four weeks ago in Singapore – but closed in 74 to tie for fourth.
Shootouts have never been her forte, but she’s fine with playing aggressively over the next 54 holes. Her second-round tee time is scheduled for 12:39 p.m. (local), which means she’ll either get some much-needed rest, or she’ll need to run and row a little farther to fill the hours.
