Charley Esmee Hull (born 20 March 1996) is an English
professional golfer who has achieved success both on the
Ladies European Tour and the
LPGA Tour
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of week ...
, winning honours as Rookie of the Year, becoming the youngest competitor to participate in the international
Solheim Cup
The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian- American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving force b ...
matches and becoming a champion on the European circuit in 2014 before the age of 18. In 2016, she won the prestigious
CME Group Tour Championship
The CME Group Tour Championship is a women's professional golf tournament, the season-ending event of the LPGA Tour. It succeeded the LPGA Tour Championship, which was played for two seasons in 2009 and 2010. From 2011 to 2013 the tournament w ...
, the season-ending event of the LPGA Tour.
Early life
Hull was first introduced to golf aged two, and began playing with her father at Kettering Golf Club. She left school aged 13 to be home schooled, and started playing in amateur tournaments.
Amateur career
Hull came to public attention aged 9, when she won a significant 18-hole handicap event against adults with a score of 28 stableford points from a handicap of 26 at
Turnberry. Aged 10 she played alongside
Morgan Pressel
Morgan Pressel (born May 23, 1988) is an American professional golfer and golf commentator who played on the LPGA Tour. In 2001, as a 12-year-old, she became the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women's Open. She was the 2005 American Ju ...
in the British Open Pro-Am.
[ Hull then won several amateur events in the United States and Great Britain and has ranked in the top-10 of the ]World Amateur Golf Ranking The World Amateur Golf Ranking for men was introduced by The R&A, the governing body of the sport of golf outside the United States and Mexico, on 23 January 2007. It is based on the results of over 2,600 amateur tournaments per year (and amateurs p ...
, reaching a high of number three in the world.
Hull played on the Great Britain and Ireland Curtis Cup
The Curtis Cup is the best known team trophy for women amateur golfers, awarded in the biennial Curtis Cup Match. It is co-organised by the United States Golf Association and The R&A and is contested by teams representing the United States and ...
team in 2012. She lost her fourballs and foursomes Foursomes, also known as alternate shot, is a pairs playing format in the sport of golf.
Golfers compete in teams of two, using only one ball per team, and taking alternate shots until the hole is completed. Team members take turns in teeing off o ...
matches on the first two days but won her singles match on the final day as the GB&I team beat the United States team 10½–9½. She had initially been removed from the team in a dispute with the Ladies Golf Union
The Ladies' Golf Union (LGU) was the governing body for women's and girls' amateur golf in Great Britain and Ireland. It was founded in 1893 and was based in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland until merging with The R&A at the start of 2017.
Issett ...
over a mandatory training session that conflicted with the Kraft Nabisco Championship
The Chevron Championship is a professional women's golf tournament. An event on the LPGA Tour, it is one of the tour's five major championships, and has traditionally been the first of the season since its elevation to major status in 1983. Fou ...
, a major championship on the LPGA Tour
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of week ...
, to which Hull had been invited. The LGU re-instated Hull to the team and Hull finished tied for 38th at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Hull also competed in the 2012 Women's British Open
The 2012 Ricoh Women's British Open was held 13–16 September at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Merseyside, England. It was the 36th Women's British Open, and the 12th as a major championship on the LPGA Tour. It was scheduled later in the yea ...
, where she was tied for third after the first round.
Professional career
Hull turned professional on 1 January 2013. She made her professional debut in March 2013 and reeled off five consecutive second-place finishes on the Ladies European Tour: Lalla Meryem Cup
The Lalla Meryem Cup is a women's professional golf tournament in Morocco under the high patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. It was held in Rabat until it moved to Agadir in 2011. It moved back to Rabat in 2016.
The tournament has been pl ...
, South African Women's Open, Turkish Airlines Ladies Open, Deloitte Ladies Open and a playoff loss at the UniCredit Ladies German Open
The Ladies German Open was a professional golf tournament on the Ladies European Tour schedule. It was held annually from 1984 to 2014 except for two interruptions, 1992 to 1994 and 2002 to 2007.
Winners
References
External links
*{{official ...
.
With five additional top-ten finishes on the Ladies European Tour, she finished sixth on the tour's Order of Merit with earnings of just under €135,995 in fifteen official events. With her strong debut on the tour, Hull was awarded the 2013 LET Rookie of the Year
The Ladies European Tour is a professional golf tour for women which was founded in 1978. It is based at Buckinghamshire Golf Club near London in England. Like many UK-based sports organisations it is a company limited by guarantee, a legal str ...
award and was voted the Best International Newcomer by the Sports Journalists' Association and presented with the Peter Wilson Trophy at the SJA British Sports Awards Hull was also on the shortlist for the BBC's Young Sports Personality of the Year, losing to 16-year-old swimmer Josef Craig.
In August 2013, Hull was selected by European Solheim Cup
The Solheim Cup is a biennial golf tournament for professional women golfers contested by teams representing Europe and the United States. It is named after the Norwegian- American golf club manufacturer Karsten Solheim, who was a driving force b ...
captain Liselotte Neumann
Liselotte Maria "Lotta" Neumann (born 20 May 1966) is a Swedish professional golfer. When she recorded her first LPGA Tour win, by claiming the 1988 U.S. Women's Open title, Neumann also became the first Swedish golfer, male or female, to win a ...
to compete in the 2013 Solheim Cup
The 2013 Solheim Cup was the 13th edition of the Solheim Cup matches, held on August 16–18 at the Colorado Golf Club in Parker, Colorado, southeast of Denver. The Solheim Cup is a biennial team competition between the top women professional g ...
, the youngest person ever to play in the tournament. The team was the first European Solheim squad to win on U.S. soil, with a final score of 18–10. Hull contributed 2 points, including a 5 & 4 singles win over Paula Creamer
Paula Creamer (born August 5, 1986)''Current Biography Yearbook 2011''p. 128 is an American professional golfer on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour. As a professional, she has won 12 tournaments, including 10 LPGA Tour events. Creamer has been as high a ...
. Neumann later praised Hull's performance.
On 16 March 2014, four days shy of her 18th birthday, Hull won her first professional title at the Lalla Meryem Cup
The Lalla Meryem Cup is a women's professional golf tournament in Morocco under the high patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. It was held in Rabat until it moved to Agadir in 2011. It moved back to Rabat in 2016.
The tournament has been pl ...
in Morocco. Having a five shot deficit to the overnight leader, Gwladys Nocera
Gwladys Nocera (born 22 May 1975) is a French professional golfer. She currently resides in Biarritz, France.
Amateur career
Nocera was born in Moulins, Allier. She had a successful amateur career. She finished runner up at the 1998 British ...
, Hull scored a bogey-free round of 62 (−9) to finish level with Nocera and force a playoff. Hull birdied the first sudden-death hole to secure the victory. She ended the 2014 season by becoming the youngest player to win the Ladies European Tour Order of Merit.
During 2015, Hull played on both the Ladies European Tour and on the LPGA Tour
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of week ...
, where she improved her priority ranking such that she was able to play full time on that tour. Since then, she has played predominantly on the LPGA Tour. In 2016, she had five top-ten finishes and won for the first time on the tour at the season ending CME Group Tour Championship
The CME Group Tour Championship is a women's professional golf tournament, the season-ending event of the LPGA Tour. It succeeded the LPGA Tour Championship, which was played for two seasons in 2009 and 2010. From 2011 to 2013 the tournament w ...
, which lifted her to fourth place in the final Race to the CME Globe points standings.
On 12 January 2019, Hull won the Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open at the Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi.
In June 2020, during a suspension of all the major golf tours due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, Hull won the opening event of the Rose Ladies Series in the United Kingdom, and in early August, finished second in the final event to top the series standings ahead of Georgia Hall
Georgia Kelly Hall (born 12 April 1996) is an English professional golfer. She plays on the Ladies European Tour, and the LPGA Tour. In 2018 she won the Women's British Open at Royal Lytham; it was her first victory in a major championship.
...
. After the tours had resumed, in late August she missed the halfway cut at the AIG Women's Open, the first major of the year. In September, she tested positive for COVID-19 during pre-tournament testing for the ANA Inspiration
The Chevron Championship is a professional women's golf tournament. An event on the LPGA Tour, it is one of the tour's five major championships, and has traditionally been the first of the season since its elevation to major status in 1983. Fou ...
and was forced to withdraw from the year's second major. In October, she finished in a tie for 7th place in the Women's PGA Championship
The Women's PGA Championship (branded as the KPMG Women's PGA Championship for sponsorship reasons) is a women's professional golf tournament. First held in 1955, it is one of five majors on the LPGA Tour. It is not recognized as a major by th ...
.
Personal life
Hull's mother and her maternal grandparents are Polish. She has two half-sisters, one from each parent.
Based at Woburn Golf Club
Woburn Golf Club is a golf club in England located in Little Brickhill, near Milton Keynes within the county of Bedfordshire, about northwest of central London.
There are three courses at the Woburn property: the "Duke's Course", which op ...
, Hull spends her winters with her family based in Florida.[
Hull has publicly spoken out against single-sex golf clubs. When asked by the ]BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
if she had experienced discrimination on the course, she recounted that when she was seven years old she defeated a 17-year-old boy and he swore at her after the match.
Hull married Ozzie Smith, a
fighter, in her hometown on the 21 September 2019.
''Results generally not in chronological order.''
CUT = Missed the half-way cut
*Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2014 ANA – 2016 Women's PGA)
*Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2018 ANA – 2018 Women's PGA)