Charley Hull doesn’t mince her words and in the wake of the LPGA’s The Annika tournament where she took a one-stroke 54-hole lead before being overtaken by world number one Nelly Korda, she called for drastic changes to the LPGA’s pace of play policy.
Slow play is an issue across all the major tours, but it’s arguably bigger on the LPGA circuit and Hull and Korda, playing in the final group on Saturday, were forced to finish in near darkness after being forced to take five hours and 38 minutes to complete their rounds and as one of the fastest players on Tour, Hull was far from being the culprit.
What makes matters worse, is that there were no weather delays at Pelican Golf Club, but both the opening and second rounds spilled into the next day, and perhaps a little peeved at seeing her chances of a third LPGA Tour win slip away, Hull took aim with both barrels.
“It was crazy,” she said after finishing tied for second behind Korda. “I’m quite ruthless, but I said, listen, if you get three bad timings, every time it’s a two shot penalty.
“If you have three of them you lose your Tour card instantly. I’m sure that would hurry a lot of people up and they won’t want to lose their Tour card.
“That would kill the slow play, but they would never do that.”
Hull’s radical solution would certainly encourage players to pick up the pace, and she sees no reason why rounds couldn’t be condensed significantly on Tour, suggesting that it would make the fan experience that much better as well.
“It’s ridiculous and I feel sorry for the fans how slow it is out there. We were out there for five hours and 40 minutes yesterday. We play in a fourball at home on a hard golf course and we’re round in three and a half, four hours. It is pretty crazy.”
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