There are few things more exciting in golf than a marauding Charley Hull. Not only did we witness precisely that here on Saturday, but Hull sent an errant shot whizzing past the head of Minjee Lee for added theatrical effect.<\/p>\n
Hull had been battling to make the AIG Women\u2019s Open cut for much of Friday afternoon. She started her third round 11 shots adrift of Miyu Yamashita. Within nine holes, Hull was five under par and on the charge. Birdies at the 12th and 13th meant she was four behind Yamashita. Hull did bogey the 14th, meaning a 66, but Yamashita\u2019s failure to build on her 36-hole position suddenly makes this a highly intriguing scene.<\/p>\n
She had one player within six strokes of her at halfway. A messy 74 means her lead is a single shot. Her short putting touch totally deserted her over the closing stretch. Hull is three behind.<\/p>\n
On the penultimate hole, Yamashita outrageously saved par from 40ft. This was a rare highlight. Thoughts of a procession have quickly vanished. Back-to-back nines of 37 saw to that. The prospect of wind and rain on day four means this could turn into an epic scrap.<\/p>\n
Hull was in wonderfully bullish mood. \u201cI just enjoy chasing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite fun. I like it. It\u2019s more fun that way. I like hunting someone down.\u201d Will she go for it on Sunday? What a silly question. \u201c100%. I haven\u2019t got anything to lose, have I?\u201d<\/p>\n
It would, in one sense, be ridiculous if Hull ends her wait for a major on the Welsh coast. She has never been a huge fan of links golf and entered this tournament nursing a back problem. Hull had also revealed she lost four kilograms because of illness after she was removed from the course at the Evian Championship<\/a> on a medical cart.<\/p>\n \u201cKind of like playing golf with your mates,\u201d said Hull of her mindset for the final round. \u201cYou just want to make birdies on every hole. That\u2019s how it feels tomorrow.\u201d Unsurprisingly, she now feels as strong as ever.<\/p>\n Miyu Yamashita struggled on the greens in the third round on the way to a 74. Photograph: Nigel French\/PA<\/p>\n Hull came close to injuring another member of the field. A rare loose shot, at the 4th, went flying past Lee after a single bounce as she addressed her ball on the 17th tee. The ball rebounded from signage at the back of the tee, meaning Hull was spared a shot from deep rough. \u201cI like Minjee, I wouldn\u2019t want to take her out,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Lee was unperturbed by the incident. \u201cIt was nothing major,\u201d said the Australian. \u201cI was glad the ball bounced. I\u2019m pretty focused. I just reset and then just go hit the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n This is not just the Yamashita and Hull show. Yamashita\u2019s wobbling brought a number of players back into the tournament. Kim A-lim is the closest to Yamashita\u2019s nine under. Andrea Lee is a shot further back at minus seven. Megan Khang, Rio Takeda and Minami Katsu are alongside Hull at six under. Georgia Hall will fancy her chances from four under and Hall is a shot ahead of Lottie Woad. Twenty-three players are within seven of what is now very much an under-pressure leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are few things more exciting in golf than a marauding Charley Hull. Not only did we witness…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":115278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-115277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114964192640125456","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}