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 mentioned she misplaced steadiness merely standing up.
Gusts of as much as 40 mph (64 kph) performed havoc with the very best feminine golfers on the planet on the Girls’s British Open at St. Andrews on Thursday.
Charley Hull handled it the very best.
The No. 10-ranked English participant rolled in a 6-foot putt on No. 18 for the final of her six birdies on the house 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, searching for her first main title, has loads of high-profile firm on the prime of the leaderboard.
Not least her enjoying accomplice, top-ranked Nelly Korda, who birdied No. 17 — the well-known Street Gap — and likewise the 18th to hitch fellow main champion Ruoning Yin of China on 4 below.
Amongst these an additional shot again was defending champion Lilia Vu, who produced two monster birdie putts on the entrance 9 of the Previous Course — internet hosting the Girls’s British Open for the third time — in her spherical of 69.
Some have been simply glad to get by it.
“Positively among the hardest circumstances I’ve ever performed in, for certain,” mentioned 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 house 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 well-liked winner, not least due to her strategy and angle.
Not forgetting the aggressive approach she performs golf, both.
Hull was frequently 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 superb 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 mentioned to my coach, it seems like they may name it at any minute as a result of I do not know the way the balls are staying on the inexperienced,” mentioned Hull, who was second by six photographs to Vu on the British Open final 12 months.
“You realize 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 troublesome 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 circumstances,” she mentioned, including: “Not that I might 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 circumstances have been robust however it’s the identical for everybody,” she mentioned. “You’ve got simply received 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 US, Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand and Mao Saigo of Japan.
