Charley Hull, as held a club, felt like she’d just been at one.
“You know when you have a hangover and the next day, you go to touch something, your hand-eye coordination is out?” Hull said. “That’s how I generally feel about drinking. I hardly drink. I drink probably two or three times a year, and I’ve just been like that for eight years now.
“But I couldn’t get to the positions in my swing. I grounded it out so much last week.”
Of course, there are the details of how she got to that point, and hazy is apropos here, too.
Wednesday, though, Hull said she was fine. Or better. She put her number at 80 percent. The popular Englishwoman is playing this week’s Women’s Scottish Open. Next week, she’ll play the Women’s Open, the last major of the year. But two weeks ago, she left the second-to-last major on a stretcher. She’s not sure why. Maybe it was the people around her who’d been sick. On the Monday ahead of the Evian Championship, though, she said she felt “rough,” and Tuesday’s practice round felt laborious. She said she was tired. Her bones ached. She had a high temperature. Wednesday’s pro-am was no better, but she played. “I didn’t want to let my pro-am team down,” she said.
“Then I woke up the next morning, on Thursday,” Hull said, “and I felt really dizzy, cold sweats, had no energy.”
Still, she played again. She was one-under through 11.
But on her 12th hole, in a fairway bunker, she sat down.
Below is her telling of what followed:
“I felt really dizzy and I was in the bunker hitting a fairway shot and I had to sit down for a minute because my eyesight went and my hearing went, and I don’t know if anyone has ever fainted before, but your eyesight goes and then your hearing goes, and then it goes all muffled.
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“So I sat down, got up, hit my bunker shot, actually nearly made birdie. Walked to the next tee, called the medics, and then before I hit my tee shot, my eyesight went again, my hearing went, and then my knees gave away and I collapsed and fainted. And then I got back up, hit my tee shot. Felt like — sit down, I was thinking, I’ve only got six holes left. I’ve got some birdie holes. Like, just finish the day, get to three- or four-under and I’m sound.
“Walked off the tee box, 20 yards off, I don’t even remember anything. My caddie said my eyes rolled to the back of my head and I was out for over a minute. And the security guard and the medic caught me just before I was about to hit my head on a concrete slab. So I was out for a minute.
“Every time I stood up, I fainted. That’s why I had to get a stretcher out, off, which was quite embarrassing, but there you go. Got an IV drip on me. They took my blood pressure. It was 80/50, which is quite low. My blood sugar was 0.4.”
A short while later, Hull withdrew, though she asked her agent to check whether she could play later that day. (“Obviously you can’t,” Hull said, “but I was gutted.”)
Was the moment scary?
“It was scary,” Hull said, “but it was weird. Like, I look back, I was like, it was actually quite scary. But at the time, I just wanted to finish my round. So I was gutted that I didn’t. But I don’t know if anyone ever fainted before.
“Like, when I woke up from fainting I felt, like, I come out of a really nice deep sleep. Like, I felt really nice. I was like, oh, this feels good. I’m, like, that’s not my bedroom. I see birds above me and about 15 people around me and I was like, where the f*** am I? Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to swear. Sorry. But yeah, that’s what I saw when it happened.”
Less than a week later, she was hitting again. Tuesday at the Scottish Open, she just putted. Doctors have told her to rest, she said, but that’s an issue. “I don’t like sitting still,” Hull said, “Drives me bonkers, not being able to go to the gym. I’ve been chilling and practising. I’ve still been practicising pretty hard. I’m not one to just do something. So just twiddling my thumbs.”
But she’s listening. She’s hopeful, too.
A reporter reminded her of a saying, which she repeated.
“Beware of the sick golfer.”
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Nick Piastowski
Golf.com Editor
Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
