Charley Hull demands extreme punishment for slow play offenders

Charley Hull has hit out at the glacial pace of play that continues to blight the LPGA Tour – insisting “ruthless” punishment is needed to enact change.

Hull called for the authorities to step in after a runner-up finish to world No.1 Nelly Korda at The Annika, a tournament overshadowed by familiar slow play issues on the circuit.

The Englishwoman is one of the fastest players in golf and is growing increasingly irked by her dithering rivals, who ultimately caused play to spill over into following days despite no interruptions at the Pelican Golf Club in Florida.

The issue led to final group Hull and Korda being forced to finish in near darkness on Saturday after a third round that lasted five hours and 38 minutes.

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And after surrendering a narrow one-shot lead to Korda on the final day of the $3.25million event, Hull claimed that threatening the removal of tour cards is the only way to stop slow play offending.

“It was crazy,” she said on Sunday after a disappointing one-over 71. “I’m quite ruthless, but I said, listen, if you get three bad timings, every time it’s a two shot penalty.

“If you have three of them you lose your Tour card instantly. I’m sure that would hurry a lot of people up and they won’t want to lose their Tour card.

“That would kill the slow play, but they would never do that.

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“It’s ridiculous and I feel sorry for the fans how slow it is out there. We were out there for five hours and 40 minutes yesterday. We play in a fourball at home on a hard golf course and we’re round in three and a half, four hours. It is pretty crazy.”

Hull’s frustration did not extend to her own play, however, despite faltering with three bogeys in an erratic front nine.

“I played pretty solid,” she said. “I just didn’t feel like I had the luck going my way, say, but Nelly played great and it was a lot of fun out there.”

Korda, meanwhile, birdied five consecutive holes down the stretch to storm past her Solheim Cup rival claim a seventh title of a dominant LPGA season.

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.