Charley Hull said she didn’t even realize she had a Twitter account because her agent had been running it for her the past five years. But when Hull randomly logged on earlier this week in search of a message she’d sent her cousin some time ago, something else caught her eye.
Lou Stagner, a golf performance coach and assistant at Princeton, had posted a direct message he’d received from an anonymous follower that read in part: “I am a 3-handicapper that plays from 6,900 yards and I hit my driver 290. I would make every cut on the LPGA and be a top-20 player.”
Stagner predicted the amateur would, in fact, finish last every week on the LPGA. The idea that a single-digit male handicapper can hang with the top female players in the world is not uncommon on Golf Twitter.
Hull decided to have some fun with it, replying: “Shall we sort this game out. I’ll let him play off the red tees whilst I’ll play off the whites.”
The Englishwoman’s challenge soon went viral.
Shall we sort this game out
I’ll let him play off the red tees whilst I’ll play off the whites https://t.co/MAGfE4hprP
— Charley Hull (@HullCharley) September 11, 2023
“I was like, the cheek of him,” said Hull, when asked about the exchange during a conference call with the media on Wednesday to preview next month’s Ascendant LPGA benefiting Volunteers of America, which Hull won last year.
With four runner-up showings this season Hull, a two-time winner on the LPGA, will soon head to Spain to compete in her sixth Solheim Cup. Hull said every part of an LPGA pro’s game is more consistent than a top amateur.
“I play with a lot of my guy friends over here, men pros, some are on the European Tour and some are on the Challenge Tour,” said Hull, “and, like, I go out and play off the same tees as them and we have good games and I beat them a lot of times. So, I don’t know, I feel like that guy needs to wake up a bit.”
Charley Hull of England looks on during the Day Two of the AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath Golf Club on August 11, 2023 in Tadworth, England. (Photo by Luke Walker/Getty Images for HSBC)
LPGA veteran Angela Stanford, who won the 2020 VOA, was also on the call and asked to weigh in on the topic.
“I feel like I’ve been a 3-handicap like the last year and I’ve made like two cuts,” said Stanford with a laugh. “So I don’t know why that gentleman thought that that, you know, … I don’t know where his head is. But I think from 1 to 18 we are so much more consistent than an amateur. And then, if it’s an entire tournament, if you have to go four days I can guarantee you, if he makes the cut, when Saturday rolls around, it’s a completely different ball game. And I laughed, and I love that Charley piped up and said it. I mean, she’s saying what we all think.”