Charley Hull trying to birdie her way to a better vacation at The ANNIKA
By Jeff Babineau
BELLEAIR, Fla. – In simplest terms, England’s Charley Hull is on one of those rolls. She entered The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican off a victory in Saudi Arabia two Saturdays ago, and her good play has continued at Pelican Golf Club.
Friday, Hull turned it on late with three birdies over her final nine on the way to firing 4-under 66 in windy conditions, and she leads by World No. 1 Nelly Korda by two shots heading into the weekend in the second-to-last stop of the LPGA season.
“(It was) a lot more trickier than yesterday, so you got to have a good ball-striking day and I'm a good ball-striker, so played more into my hands,” Hull said.
She began her back nine with a birdie at the 10th, where she hit wedge to 10 feet, rolled in an 18-footer at 13, and got up and down from just off the green for a third birdie at the par-5 14th. Her 66 leaves her at 10-under 130 after two rounds.
Jin Hee Im (65), Wichanee Meechai (66) and Mi Hyang Lee (68) joined Alex Pano (64) in a tie for third, three shots back. Rose Zhang (68) is in a group of players at 5-under 135 that includes Minjee Lee (69), Nasa Hataoka (67), Allisen Corpuz (66) and 2020 ANNIKA champion Sei Young Kim (68).
Hull, 28, ranked 12th in the world, has an interesting bet with her boyfriend that may deliver her to some exotic vacation spot at the end of the season. You see, for every five birdies that Hull makes, she gets to add a day to her offseason holiday.
A day after opening with seven birdies at Pelican Golf Club, Hull, the 28-year-old fast-swinging, fast-talking Englishwoman in search of her third career LPGA title, added five more, and she could be tough to catch over the final 36 holes at The Annika.
That said, getting the best of Korda, a two-time champion of the event, certainly won’t be easy. Korda shot 66 for the second consecutive round, and she is making it look rather easy, even in windy and difficult conditions on Friday.
“I'm just comfortable,” said Korda, a winner at Pelican in 2021 and 2022 and a six-time winner already in 2024. Even before next week’s CME Group Tour Championship, Korda has secured Rolex Player of the Year honors on the LPGA.
“I think playing in front of my family, too, so close to home (she resides in Bradenton, just down the coast), that is also a reason why I feel comfortable out here.”
Putting on greens so slick that Korda likened them to “putting on ice,” Korda ran off seven consecutive pars to start her second nine (Pelican’s front) before finishing with birdies on her final two holes (eight and nine).
“Even with it being windy, tough conditions, I just kind of know the holes where you kind of have to be safe, and the holes where you can be a little bit more aggressive on,” Korda said.
Hull has her game seemingly on cruise control, having now played her last seven rounds in 38-under par. Included in that stretch is a hot final round at Maybank (7 under), a winning total of 18 under in Riyadh, and her 64-66 start in Florida.
Hull was the lone player in the field to reach double-digits under par at any time on Friday at Pelican. Second-year LPGA pro Alexa Pano had a great run of her own, making nine birdies in her first 17 holes. At 18, a tough par 4, she missed the green long and left, and her downhill chip was hit with too much weight, her ball speeding off the green and into a pond that fronts it. She dropped, pitched to inches, and tapped in for double bogey, and a round of 64.
She did not allow the finish to sour an otherwise standout round.
“I had 17 really solid holes,” Pano said. “I said to my dad (Rick, her caddie) on 18, I was like, that feels like the first really poor swing I made all day. He was like, ‘You're going to have bad swings. Just sucks it was on this hole.”
An LPGA tournament winner in 2023, Pano will start the weekend three shots behind Hull. Players are competing for different things this weekend. Some are locked in on finishing top 100 in CME points to keep their cards for 2025; others are looking to get into the top 60 to earn a spot into next week’s CME Group Tour Championship, where the winner will earn $4 million.
Count Pano, only 20, in the latter of those two groups.
“I think I'm just focusing on the golf tournament that's in front of me,” she said. “My coach always says that winning takes care of everything. I'm just focused on winning this golf tournament. If anything else happens after that, it happens.”
Two more hot rounds and Hull and her boyfriend could be headed for a nice, long vacation after next week’s event in Naples.
First for Hull comes a matchup against Korda, a rematch of a Sunday singles pairing from this fall’s Solheim Cup in Virginia. Hull routed Korda, 6 and 4, though Korda’s U.S. team would win the cup that day.
It was at the Solheim Cup that Korda began to experience migraine headaches that forced her retreat to dark rooms to get any rest, and eventually (along with a neck injury) kept the World No. 1 from playing in Asia this fall.
“I just wasn't sure what was kind of going on. I never thought it could have been an injury,” Korda said on Thursday. “I just thought maybe with everything, all the stress that I went through during the year, that like my body was kind of in overdrive in a sense.
“Yeah, sometimes your body gives you signs, right? It's smart. I need to listen to it a little bit more.”
Play was called because of darkness with three players still on the golf course Friday evening at Pelican, so Saturday tee times have yet to be finalized. The third round is scheduled to start at 8 a.m.
When told she would be grouped with Hull in the third round, Korda smiled.
“She's always a fun time,” she said of Hull. “Hopefully we give a good show.”
Hull’s mind immediately started to race, as well, when thinking about her third-round grouping with Korda.
“She makes loads of birdies, so good fun to watch,” Hull said of Korda. “Yeah, it's really cool. I'm going to ask her about her swimsuit thing (Korda is in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue) because she looked really nice in it. I think it was pretty cool.”
With three players left to finish their second rounds, the cut will be made Saturday morning, and is projected to fall at 1-over 141. Among those who will not make it to the last two rounds: Lexi Thompson (143) and former U.S. Open champion Yuka Saso (148).
