Scottie Scheffler, the entertaining golfer, gave us plenty to appreciate over the weekend, pushing Jackson Koivun to the brink at the 3M Open. But for those who have seen that story before — the PGA Tour devotees who are always watching, always listening, etc. — it was Scheffler’s thoughts from earlier in the week that I found most entertaining.
When asked about Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau and the basis for rivalries in golf, Scheffler proved (once again) he does not think like TV executives, media members or marketing managers. He doesn’t even think like a golf fan. No, rivalries between players are not for him. Jabs between players are not for him. His rival, every week, is the golf course. Nothing more, nothing less.
And isn’t it the boiled-down truth? A rival at Renaissance Club, where he missed the cut for the first time in nearly four years on a course he can’t quite figure out. A new rival at Royal Birkdale, where he couldn’t quite figure out the greens all week long. A brand-new rival in TPC Twin Cities, that he seemed to figure out just enough for (another) second place. It is always just the golfer vs. the golf course — how they’re doing vs. how it’s playing. And you know what, that’s enough for the golf sickos. That’s all the rivalry we really need.
Enter the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, a most perfect stage for the self-contained rivalry that is Charley Hull on her own.
Hull is an all-gas-no-brakes kinda golfer. She rips driver almost everywhere. She plays a brand of aggressive golf that shows itself most on the weekend, when conservative players tighten up and an alley up the leaderboard reveals itself.
Lytham is all about riding the brake — hovering your golfing foot over that pedal, ready to halt. Its reputation precedes itself, where visitors already know what they’re getting before they even step on the property. They’re getting a mostly-flat romp around architecturally-varied holes that are littered by 174 pot bunkers. But decidedly not bunkers in the way we think of them, or even in the way Royal Birkdale displayed for the men’s Open — bunkers built with funneled surrounds that suck balls in their direction. Sand depots as true hazards.
We stress upon Charley Hull in this exact instance because this year has witnessed the best golf of her life, and yet she’s still waiting for the major championship payoff. If it doesn’t happen this week on England’s west coast, we once again start the long wait for next year’s major schedule, some eight or nine months away. And it’s possible that no contending player — barring Nelly Korda, perhaps — has had such an intriguing relationship with links golf as Hull has. Just last week, for example, she explained how she has had to rejigger her mindset around this event.
“Yeah just kind of got out of my head that links golf doesn’t suit me, and just make it try to suit me,” she said.
One would think it would naturally suit her, given she was born and raised in the U.K. and spends plenty of time there throughout the year. It was just after the U.S. Women’s Open that she sprinted to a red-eye for a golf trip back home, which included a stop at this week’s Open host. But there’s something about it that doesn’t speak to her golfing soul quite as much as the other majors.
“I love the U.S. Open. U.S. Open to me is the crème de la crème,” Hull said last week. “The golf courses we play — they just suit my eye so well and, links is just hard to visualize it. You just have to really visualize it and trust yourself.”
She’s speaking to a level of artistry, or creativity in the attack, that Hull isn’t so keen for. She’d rather do as she did at that crème de la crème event from last month, at Riviera Country Club, and play ‘F—k it’ golf. She aimed at every pin, played driver off basically every tee box and was so good that it was rewarded. If she had been chasing anyone other than Korda, it would have led to at least a spot in a playoff.
“Today was f—k it, pretty much,” she said that night. “You know what I mean?”
Hull had reached eight under on the 12th tee box, and if she had just stayed there, she would have matched Korda. But she made a couple bogeys down the stretch, at least in part because she was trying to get to 10 under. It all felt a bit reminiscent of the last time she was in major championship contention, precisely 12 months ago at the Women’s Open.
At Royal Porthcawl in Wales, Hull trailed Miyu Yamashita by eleven shots after the 36-hole cut. But then she took off on the weekend and carded a 66 before eventually getting to just one shot back with three holes to play. That aggressive mentality, coupled with elite ball-striking — it just worked there on that specific links at that specific time.
You go back and watch the broadcast, and you’ll hear Hull deliberate with her caddie about club selection on the 16th tee. You’ll also hear Iona Stephen explain that there was one bunker in particular that was “big trouble,” and it was the one along the left side of the fairway. Hull throttled down, took her caddie’s advice, and pulled that shot into the bunker. “Damnit,” she said. In a spot where she couldn’t afford a single bogey, she found the one place that basically guarantees one.
That is what I think of when we anticipate Royal Lytham this week — the tug-of-war that takes place within Hull’s game as she tries playing her type of golf on a links course. It nearly worked in 2023, when she finished solo second to Lilia Vu, but that was on a heathland course and Vu won by six. Hull’s up-and-down relationship with the links has just been different.
Lytham is mostly an out-and-back affair, like many Open venues can be. It demands precision over power, and it’s no wonder when you walk its fairways why Adam Scott was in perfect position to win the Open there in 2012. And it makes even more sense, perhaps, that when Scott faded, someone with an equally magnificent ball-striking game — Ernie Els — was there in his place atop the leaderboard.
Two weeks ago, during Open week, Lytham was as firm as anything. It was one of the courses that red-hot Lucas Herbert used to prepare himself for the men’s Open. The area hadn’t seen precipitation for most of three weeks, and you saw that play out at the nearby Birkdale, just down the coast. But this week? Mother Nature is expected to play a factor. There is plenty of rain in the forecast and even chillier conditions over the weekend. It will feel like a proper Open Championship, all of which makes for one helluva rival for someone trying to come to grips with what that means for her game.
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