Five major runner-up finishes, a Saturday 65 and a Sunday charge that fell one shot short. Charley Hull reflected on another near-miss at the US Women’s Open by Ally with characteristic honesty — and explained why coming second is not what hurts the most.
Charley Hull arrived at Riviera having scraped inside the cut, seven shots off the lead, not striking the ball as well as she would have liked. She had spent two days hitting it tidily enough and making nothing on the greens. On Saturday morning she walked to the first tee, cleared her head and made a decision. “Just thought f*** it,” she said, after signing for a 65 — the lowest round of the championship.
That is Hull in her purest form. “I kind of like chasing,” she said. “I just find it more fun and I can then be free and play golf how I want to play golf.”
The battle inside her own mind
The trick, for Hull, is getting out of her own way. She described spending late nights watching old videos of her own swing — cataloguing every feel she had found over the years, analysing what had worked and what had not. And then she explained why she had learned to stop. “Sometimes you just got to cancel all that out and just think nothing.”
It is a tension she recognises and articulates with unusual clarity. “I overthink things ridiculously and then get myself really tired,” she said. The first two days at Riviera, by her own assessment, were spent trying to stay within herself. By Saturday she had run out of patience with caution. “Now I have nothing to lose,” she said. “I can just go at everything and just play free golf like I do at home.”
The adrenaline
Sunday brought more of the same — and something she admitted she cannot quite replace. She played her way into a share of the lead, birdied 10 and 11, made an eagle at the first. Then she was asked what it felt like to be in contention at the end of a US Women’s Open.
“I love that feeling,” she said. “I love the feel of being under the gun, under pressure. That adrenaline — when you do go wrong you’ve got to bounce back. I love that feeling. It’ll be a massive comedown tomorrow — not because I came second, but because the adrenaline goes out of my body.”
She had set herself a target of ten under, reckoning that should be enough. When eight proved sufficient, she had no regrets about the approach. “If you always aim super, super high and you just come short, you’re still going to do really well,” she said. “Big expectations.”
Five and counting
The frustration was real enough. “It’s just frustrating. Another second place. I think that’s five second place finishes I’ve had in majors now. So yeah, it’s pretty annoying.” The tally is the second-highest by any player who has never won one — the 2016 Chevron, 2023 US Women’s Open, 2023 AIG Women’s Open, 2025 AIG Women’s Open and now Riviera — one behind Ayako Okamoto’s record of six. Hull is 30 and did not look remotely like a player running out of chances.
She dealt with it in the way she deals with most things. “It’s not over until the fat lady sings,” she said. “Fatty makes a move on the weekend.” She had aimed for ten under, landed on seven, and hit some of the best iron shots of her week in the closing holes — including a beauty from 160 yards out of the rough on the 18th that got a big bounce and still left her with an up-and-down she was pleased to make.
“I played really well the last day,” she said. “Obviously missed a couple of putts on the back nine, but it was quite windy and I hit the ball fantastic. Fair play to Nelly Korda for back-to-back wins.”
Who she is
The night before her Saturday charge she had taken her cousin to Malibu — who had spent days building it up as a Barbie-movie vision of surfers and ocean life, and arrived to find rather less. “My lifelong dream is being crushed,” was the verdict. Hull found it the funniest thing that had happened all week. She then went for a red-light sauna, an ice bath and a Mexican restaurant.
Looking ahead to Hazeltine and beyond
Hull left Riviera with a clear sense of what to carry forward. She arrived having already won on tour this season, and leaves with back-to-back top-ten finishes in majors. “Just kind of gather my thoughts together and just play the way I did at the weekend on the first two days at the KPMG,” she said, pointing specifically to the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Hazeltine National as the next target — and the next opportunity to take a blank mind and a fearless mindset into the week that matters.
The Amundi Evian Championship and the AIG Women’s Open follow. Hull has been runner-up at the AIG twice in three years.
The conversation about Charley Hull and the majors is nowhere near finished.
