Is Trish Johnson right to criticise Charley Hull after another near miss?

Ladies European Tour and Solheim Cup legend Trish Johnson is no fan of Charley Hull’s style of play which she believes is too aggressive.

Last weekend, Hull blundered her way to a double bogey-bogey finish at the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship while in contention for her third LPGA Tour title.

Despite another commendable top-10 finish for the ever-consistent Englishwoman, she faced more disappointment as the new World No.1 Nelly Korda lifted the trophy.

Hull recorded four runner-up finishes in 2023 and in the backdrop of this latest near miss in California, Johnson was asked if Hull “wins enough,” to which she responded with no hesitation.

“Christ, not even close. You’re not being harsh, I’m probably her harshest critic because I know how good she is. She doesn’t win anywhere near enough for her talent, and she doesn’t get involved enough in all honesty,” she said on the Sky Sports Golf podcast.

“The thing with Charley is – you’re never going to change her. I read something, I think it was on Facebook, she said how much she loves the game and it’s her love of the game. She will never change, she is just going to go at every pin.

“Well, that’s a lovely theory. In theory, that’s great but it won’t win you golf tournaments. It just won’t, because she’s not that much better than anybody else. If you put Charley against Nelly Korda, I’m picking Nelly Korda every single day of the week.

“Charley is a great talent, but she’s a fruitcake, in the nicest possible way. She’s lovely, but that’s the way she plays the game. And I don’t mean a fruitcake as in brain-wise, I mean golf-wise, that is the way she plays.

“It’s a bit like watching John Daly, I suppose. There’s something that John Daly had that made him a major winner, and a winner a lot. Charley is lacking that. Her talent isn’t in question, maybe her application, maybe it’s just a case of she isn’t ever going to change.

“That will cost her golf tournaments. There are no two ways about it. You cannot go at every pin just because that’s the way I play and that’s fun because other players are better than that. And you have to have course management.”

The 28-year-old is not without success of course. She broke through on the LPGA Tour in 2016 by winning the CME Group Tour Championship, but her next win on the US circuit didn’t arrive until the Volunteers of America Classic in 2022.

Hull has won three times in Europe and has nine top-10s in major championships to her name.

So was Johnson, a 19-time LET winner and an eight-time participant of the Solheim Cup, right to go in so hard on Hull’s course management and what she sees as an aggressive approach?

Do we see enough Charley Hull wins? The numbers say an aggressive style doesn’t pay off…

If we look at the statistics, Trish is right; there is absolutely no way Charley should be firing at every pin, writes NCG’s Hannah Holden.

Golfers are firing shotguns, not sniper rifles when they hit approach shots into the greens, and even the best players in the world don’t have a small enough shot pattern to be aiming directly for pins, especially when they are tucked away at the sides or in corners of greens.

In debating the balance between passive and aggressive, it’s important to note Scott Fawcett who is the founder of Decade, the biggest Course Management System in golf. He spent years analysing Tiger’s strategy to create a system to help golfers navigate the course most effectively.

The data clearly shows Tiger very rarely fired at pins but instead plotted his way around the course by picking the right spots to aim for that would get him in the least amount of trouble should he not pull his intended shot off.

Tiger was even quoted saying he’d be pleased if he hit even one perfect shot per tournament. If one of the greatest golfers in the game knows he only executes perfectly ONCE in seventy-two holes, then why on earth does anyone think they are good enough to take on a tight pin out on the golf course?

Charley’s strategy may be more fun, but that doesn’t mean it is the best play if she wants to win more tour events. She said on social media last week that she is good enough to recover from a bad shot, yet in tournament play, this isn’t the case.

Last week at the Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship in California, Charley missed a few greens in the closing stretch. A particularly bad miss left her chipping from a bad lie onto a downslope, where it was basically impossible to stop the ball near the hole.

Playing to more conservative spots will give her a chance to not only miss fewer greens but also to have more simple chip shots when she does get out of position. That could quickly lap up all those runner-up positions and put a few extra trophies in her cabinet.

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