‘It’s ridiculous’: Charley Hull calls for slow play to face extreme punishment
Charley Hull has hit out at “ridiculously” slow play in women’s golf as he insists serial offenders should be removed from the LPGA Tour.
Hull came second at Annika Sörenstam’s event in Florida, where Nelly Korda took her seventh win of the year. The tournament was overshadowed by pace of play issues, with Hull among the players who completed their third round in near darkness on Saturday evening. The topic is a perennial topic on the LPGA Tour and shows no sign of going away.
Hull have had enough now. “It’s ridiculous,” said the Englishwoman. “I feel sorry for the fans how slow it is there. By lap three we had been on the road for five hours and forty minutes. We play fourball at home on a hard golf course and finish in three and a half, four hours. It’s pretty crazy.”
Referees do have the discretion to punish players for slow play. However, sanctions such as shot penalties or fines are rarely applied at the highest levels of women’s or men’s golf. Hull, one of the fastest players in the sport’s elite world, believes golfers should be threatened with expulsion from the LPGA Tour if they fail to play within the designated times.
“I’m quite ruthless, but [my idea would be] if you get three bad timings it’s a two-shot penalty every time,” Hull added. “If you have three, you immediately lose your Tour card. I’m sure this would help a lot of people and they wouldn’t want to lose their Tour card. That would kill the slow game, but they would never do that.”
In 2023, the LPGA Tour reduced the number of players making weekend cuts in an effort to speed up the final 36 holes of competition. Three years earlier, Stacy Lewis had denounced the ‘terribly slow game’ at the Scottish Open.
Korda noted that the third-round scenario at Belleair was far from ideal. “It’s quite difficult when you don’t really see it,” said the world number one. “I think it was a bit of poor planning because we started so late. If you’re at 18 and the sun has already set, I mean, that’s never nice.”
Meanwhile, Sergio García will rejoin the DP World Tour from LIV in the hope of competing in the Ryder Cup for the eleventh time. Luke Donald, who will captain Europe at Bethpage next year, recently held talks with García about a return. The Spaniard’s move was confirmed on Monday.
García, 44, who joined the Saudi-backed breakaway golf league in 2022, has had to pay significant fines – believed to be more than £1 million – imposed by DP and will also serve a ban. García resigned from the DP in May 2023 after an arbitration panel upheld the Tour’s right to fine and ban players who played in LIV events without permission.
“Sergio García has submitted his application to return to DP World Tour membership for the 2025 season before the deadline on Sunday, November 17,” a DP World Tour spokesperson said. “He has paid his fines but will have to serve his suspensions before he can play on the DP World Tour.”