Teenager Charley wins battle of nerves at Women's British Open
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UPDATED:
20:35 GMT, 13 September 2012
Standing on the first tee at the Ricoh Women's British Open and treating it like a game with your friends sounds like rule one in a sports psychologist's manual.
Far easier said than done, surely Maybe it helps if you're 16 years of age and have already given the paid ranks glimpses of your burgeoning promise.
Focused: England's Charley Hull lines up a putt
England's No 1 Melissa Reid played with the teen in question, Charley Hull recently and came away raving about her mental acumen. So it was that the nerveless Hull underlined her considerable potential by becoming one of the few players to shoot under par on the opening day at Royal Liverpool.
I know it's a major but that's how I think about it, like I'm out with my mates and I enjoy courses like this one that are long and challenging,' said Hull, following a one under par score of 71 that left her just a stroke off the lead held by South Koreans Heiji Kang and So Yeon Ryu.
Hull, from Woburn, shot the same total in the year's first major, the Kraft Nabisco in California, only to follow it with a 77. She's keen to show what she's learned from that experience.
'In the second round in California I got under pressure and started to hit the ball too hard but I rebounded well in the third round with a 68,' said Hull. 'I learned then just to swing slower and keep taking it shot by shot and hole by hole and that's what I will be telling myself here.'
Treating it like another round with her pals might help as well.
Charley Hull (amateur)
With New Zealand's 15 year old sensation Lydia Ko shooting 72, this was a day when the two youngest players in the event rather stole the show. Like her Curtis Cup team mate Hull, 21 year old Holly Clyburn from Cleethorpes came through Monday qualifying and shot 72.
As if to emphasise the shifting scene, America's much-decorated Juli Inkster, now 52, could only manage a 79, while 48 year old Laura Davies fared even worse with an 80. Perhaps you needed to be very young to cope with the crushingly slow pace of play.
Davies, who has always played the game with refreshing briskness, delivered her own withering commentary by appearing to fall asleep on the 8th tee, while waiting for the backlog to clear.
The wind picked up during the afternoon and the two young stars of the British professional scene, Melissa Reid and Carly Booth both struggled, signing for scores of 77.
Booth looked devastated at the finish of her first major championship round, one that had seen her struggle off the tee, and this is not a course you can play from the rough. 'I couldn't keep the ball on the fairway and pretty much everything was just off,' said the 20 year old Scot. 'The conditions were really tough as well.'
Struggle: Laura Davies
Booth was in good company in failing to cope, mind. In 2006 when the men's Open returned here after an absence of 39 years, the sun shone brightly, the fairways were parched and there was little wind. Here it is green, the rough is up and all it took was a typical breeze of 15mph for a telling reminder of what a truly forbidding links this can be.
'If you didn't have total control of your ball out there, you had no chance,' said former champion Karen Stupples, who shot 76 and was just one of many who will return today with a little trepidation in her heart. The forecast is for winds of up to 45mph, and if that happens there will be some embarrassing numbers posted. Imagine how Reid's French playing partner, Anne-Lise Caudal is going to feel, for example. She shot 87 in yesterday's conditions.
Catriona Matthew, winner of this title on the Lancashire coastline three years ago, fared little better than Booth, labouring to a round of 76. At the other end of the scale, 21 year old Kang opened with a bogey but thereafter was almost flawless, keeping the ball out of the penal rough and the notoriously difficult bunkers to post her 70. As if to emphasise the nature of the challenge, it was the highest leading score since this event became a major in 2001.
As for the big name Americans, Paula Creamer did well enough with a 73 but Michelle Wie has had a poor year by her standards and it didn't get much better with a 75, with all the damage being done during an outward half of 39. At least the 22 year old didn't lose her sense of perspective. As she came towards the recorder's hut, she acknowledged a couple of young girls who had come straight from school to watch.
