England’s Charley Hull has been a member of Woburn Golf Club for eight years and feels that the Marquess’ Course is set up in her favour for the AIG Women’s British Open this week.
At 6,756 yards, the course is roughly 300 yards longer than it was for the 2016 championship, when it was playing fast and firm and Ariya Jutanugarn won without using a driver.
This week, heavy rain has soaked the course for the last two days and it is playing every inch of its yardage. Hull, 23, from nearby Kettering, is relishing the challenge.
“I like the way they’ve set it up this time. It’s playing a lot longer, so it’s nice. My favourite holes are the third, ninth and 14th, because they are tough holes, great holes – never boring,” said Hull, who finished T17th in the 2016 championship at the same venue. Although she can barely remember the details from three years ago, aside from that her phone and passport were stolen from her dad’s car that week, those in the gallery recall a triple bogey on the first hole of her third round leading to a 75, which effectively de-railed her chances.
“I went out and played here three weeks after the Open last time and shot my best score on the Marquess’ course – a five-under off the back tees, playing the course at 7,200 yards, and I thought, ‘Why couldn’t I have done that a few weeks ago?’” she said.
This year, the world No.27 has been slightly in the shadow of the defending champion, Georgia Hall, who won last year at Royal Lytham, but the three-time Solheim Cup player and tournament winner feels her game is solid, coming off a T30th in the Evian Championship. She is also fully recovered from salmonella poisoning, which she picked up at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship last month.
Now in her seventh year on Tour, this week perhaps presents her best chance to win her first major and she said: “I’d really love to win this event on home turf, but I’m not going to say that it would be the be all and end all, because I don’t want to put pressure on myself.
“I’ll just go out there and have fun, go out there and enjoy it.”
Hull’s dad Dave, who was so influential in the early years of her career, might make an appearance this week, although these days it’s her fiancé Ozzie Smith who is most often seen walking in the gallery.
The pair will have an ‘English wedding’ on 21st September, just after The Solheim Cup, but first there is the business of a major in which to contend.
Hull will get her campaign under way at 7.36am tomorrow, in the company of the KPMG Women’s PGA Champion Hannah Green and former world number one Shanshan Feng.
