It’s the most surreal of cult-hero creating happenstances, but Charley Hull’s penchant for smoking a ciggie or two on course made her a darling within golf’s social media circles.
Anybody who knows Hull raves about her fantastic personality, her comic timing – both intentional and unintentional – and she was dubbed the glue that bound the European Solheim Cup team, so for her to go viral because she happened to share a bad habit with one in eight of her fellow Britons was a little odd.
Our own John Craven wrote a column about it last week, and it wasn’t long before her smoking habits had her back in the spotlight again. This time with a difference though, as this time, it’s Hull not smoking that was making headlines.
Given that the Olympics are a celebration of the finest athletes on the planet, it’s perhaps no surprise that smoking is prohibited within the grounds of Le Golf National – as is drinking alcohol – which is sort of ironic given that just about every Frenchman I know is like a fish out of water without a glass of wine accompanying lunch and a ciggie for dessert.
Thankfully, she avoided the potential PR banana skin of kicking up a fuss and demanding that she be allowed puff away to her heart’s content – it’s unlikely John Daly would’ve been so accepting – but nicotine is an addiction, and withdrawal doesn’t come without symptoms, so Hull has to overcome additional challenges to the other 59 women – I’m not aware of any other smokers among the 60 women competing, though the law of averages suggests there must be one or two.
And Le Golf National is not exactly the place to have a slight case of the jitters or to allow minor inconveniences to get on your nerves. And if you’ve ever known a smoker who’s tried to quit, then you know that’s exactly what happens.
Thankfully for Hull, there’s nicotine patches, chewing gum, all manner of substitute methods for getting the addictive substance into your bloodstream, but substitutes are rarely adequate.
If I was a betting man, I’d be putting my money on Hull making frequent and liberal use of the portable toilets stationed around Le Golf National and the next visitor might just get a slight acrid aroma.
But it’ll be out of sight, if not exactly out of mind, but portable toilets aren’t exactly known for their sweetly perfumed scents, so it’d be a minor convenience for those in the groups following.
And the anarchist in me would love to see her on the medal podium, channelling her inner Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and sparking up a John Player Blue in defiant resistance for the world’s ciggie lovers.
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