Hannah Burke is feeling inspirited thanks to a wonderful run of results which has seen the Englishwoman rekindle her best form just when she needed it most.
It has been a frustrating season for the one-time Ladies European Tour (LET) winner who had fallen to 133rd in the Race to Costa del Sol after a freak eye injury forced her to withdraw from the KPMG Women’s Irish Open.
Returning at the Big Green Egg Open in September with blurred vision and lower expectations, the ever-resilient Burke has turned a corner at a crucial time, finishing T15 in the Netherlands before recording three top eleven finishes in her last four events.
“I feel like I was getting frustrated previously because I was hitting it well but not scoring well,” Burke said, who is still recovering from injury after taking a golf ball to eye three months ago. “Now I’ve not been expecting quite as much given that I can’t really see out of my right eye… but it seems to be working fine! You’ve just got to go with your gut I suppose.
“I think I’ve lowered my expectations, which might not sound great, but it’s worked. I’m obviously still struggling with my right eye. I’ve still got a dilated pupil so it’s quite blurry and has been giving me quite a few head aches. But I’ve had to just take it as it is. I can’t do anything about it.”
Needing a big finish at the end of the season to cement her card (this year’s top 70 earn full status for 2024), Burke finished T8 at the Lacoste Ladies Open de France and T11 in Hong Kong before enjoying her finest hour of season at the Hero Women’s Indian Open last week finishing fourth.
“I’m really happy overall,” Burke said, who fired rounds of 70-70-72-69 in India as Aline Krauter claimed victory. “The golf course [DLF Golf & Country Club] can eat you alive, so I had to be patient and take the chances when I had them.”
In the process, and most crucially, Burke has jumped 73 places in the Race to Costa del Sol to 60th position since returning from injury, an astonishing run which has now all but secured her LET card for next season.
“It’s massive,” Burke said, whose solo LET victory came in 2015 at the Tipsport Golf Masters. “It’s been a grind these last few events. It’s been a frustrating year. I feel like I’ve been playing well but just not scoring well. Which has been making me quite frustrated. But now I’ve turned the corner, clearly that golf ball knocked some sense into me!
“The aim was to try and get 100 points from these two events, and that should get me inside the top 70 to keep my card. I would love to play two more events in Mallorca and Spain, so it’s been great to get that jump going.”
Burke and the LET move to Saudi Arabia next for the final Aramco Team Series presented by PIF event in Riyadh.
“I now have a lot of confidence,” she said. “It’s a totally new course so we will see what we find when we get there. The Aramco events are always good fun and hopefully I get a good team and have a lot of fun.”
