Charley Hull has dealt with some gnarly injuries this season, but torn ligaments, muscles and viruses have hardly slowed her down. The clumsy (by her own admission) superstar is back in the U.S. teeing it up this week in the Kroger Queen City Championship in Hamilton Township outside Cincinnati.
It’s quite a feat that Hull, ranked eighth in the world, is back competing given all she’s dealt with and her original timetable to return after her August ankle injury. She tripped over a curb in the golf course parking lot at the PIF London Championship and had to withdraw from the event.
“Obviously, I tore a ligament completely in half in my ankle, so that was at a golf tournament after the British Open,” Hull said in Ohio. “I had to pull [out]. They said it would probably be about nine weeks recovery time, but I cut it down to three. I am a little bit sore this week after playing last week.”
Hull, 29, returned to action last week in the Ladies European Tour’s Aramco Houston Championship and didn’t miss a beat as she finished tied for second, two shots behind Nuria Iturrioz.
It’s been quite an up and down season for Hull, who has two LPGA top-10s. Undoubtedly, the most intense ailment came in July at the Amundi Evian Championship in France. During the first round of the major, she fainted twice while playing and was carted off the course to the clubhouse on a stretcher. It was a scary scene for her and other golfers. She recovered in the clubhouse with what turned out to be a virus, but had to withdraw.
Then came a back injury—something that’s still nagging her—before the next major. And yet, she finished in a tie for second in the AIG Women’s British Open, two shots behind Miyu Yamashita.
Before that major, Hull injured her back lifting a box, giving her another quirky injury, one she’s also still managing.
“I feel like it’s just come at the wrong time when I’m playing well,” Hull said of her litany of ailments and injuries this season. “… It’s just gone one after another. Playing pretty decent golf—touch wood—and it’s just come at an awkward point as well and you just want to play loads of golf. But it’s life and at the end of the day I’m still breathing, so I’m fine.”
Asked if she thought about taking a more extended break after the ankle injury, Hull said, “I did on them three, four weeks I took off. Get bored though. I think it’s actually boring to be sat on the sofa doing sweet nothing, do you know what I mean? I always like to be doing something, and the golf course is the place that I’m meant to be.”
Hull isn’t sure if she’ll play at the Lotte Championship Oct. 1-4 on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, and a lot of that has to do with her back, with cysts now growing on her spine, she said. It always seems to be something.
“I feel like a 12-hour flight to L.A. and then a five-hour flight [to Hawaii] could do me more harm than good, get there and not play,” Hull said. “We’ll try to assess it over the next few weeks.”
Also on Hull’s radar is the International Crown, a biennial, four-player team event in which the Englishwoman will play for the newly formed World Team team that includes Lydia Ko, Brooke Hendeson and Wei-Ling Hsu. The tournament is set for late October in South Korea, and there are five other events in Asia before the LPGA returns for its final two official tournaments in November.
“I’m really looking forward to them events and the end of the season as well. Be good fun,” Hull said.
