ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Golf balls wobbled on the tees and greens. Gamers wore large earmuffs and neck heaters and donned oven-style mitts between photographs. American star Rose Zhang stated she misplaced stability merely standing up.
Gusts of as much as 40 mph (64 kph) performed havoc with the most effective feminine golfers on the planet on the Girls’s British Open at St. Andrews on Thursday.
Charley Hull handled it the most effective.
The No. 10-ranked English participant rolled in a 6-foot putt on No. 18 for the final of her six birdies on the dwelling of golf to shoot 5-under 67 and take a one-stroke lead after the primary spherical of the 12 months’s fifth and last main.
Hull, in search of her first main title, has loads of high-profile firm on the high of the leaderboard.
Not least her enjoying associate, top-ranked Nelly Korda, who birdied No. 17 — the well-known Street Gap — and in addition the 18th to hitch fellow main champion Ruoning Yin of China on 4 beneath.
Amongst these an extra shot again was defending champion Lilia Vu, who produced two monster birdie putts on the entrance 9 of the Outdated Course — internet hosting the Girls’s British Open for the third time — in her spherical of 69.
Some had been simply glad to get by means of it.
“Positively a few of the hardest situations I’ve ever performed in, for positive,” stated England’s Georgia Corridor, the 2018 champion who eagled her final gap — No. 9 — for a 71.
Corridor is the final British participant to win her dwelling main. Now her shut pal is trying to do the identical.
By the point Hull walked down the final, the wind had dropped and he or she was trying cool in her sun shades as she waved to the spectators lining the golf green. She can be a preferred winner, not least due to her method and perspective.
Not forgetting the aggressive manner she performs golf, both.
Hull was usually the longest driver within the marquee group containing Korda and Vu, with one tee shot — on the 14th — going 336 yards.
Stage par after a bogey on No. 8, she made 5 birdies on her final 10 holes. There was a 12-footer on No. 12, an 8-footer at No. 15 to hitch Yin in a share of the lead earlier than Hull performed the final — that wonderful gap again into city — completely by driving to the entrance of the inexperienced, hitting the second to six ft and making no mistake with the putt.
Hull was barely involved watching the early starters on TV within the worst of the windy climate.
“I stated to my coach, it seems like they may name it at any minute as a result of I do not understand how the balls are staying on the inexperienced,” stated Hull, who was second by six photographs to Vu on the British Open final 12 months.
“You recognize what it is going to be like earlier than the start of the spherical, so that you form of simply mentally put together for that earlier than.”
That was half the battle on a tricky day.
Korda, who received the Chevron Championship for a second main amid a dominant 2024 for the American, wound up having fun with the grind.
“There’s one thing enjoyable about enjoying in these situations,” she stated, including: “Not that I’d do it each single time.”
Yin, ranked No. 6 and the winner of the Girls’s PGA Championship final 12 months, took all of it in her stride.
“The situations had been robust nevertheless it’s the identical for everybody,” she stated. “You’ve got simply obtained to attempt to make the wind your pal.”
Vu was in a six-way tie for fourth place with Jenny Shin and Mi Hyang Lee of South Korea, Andrea Lee of the USA, Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand and Mao Saigo of Japan.
