This week’s top golf rivalry is in England

Scottie Scheffler, the exciting golfer, gave us a lot to appreciate over the weekend, pushing Jackson Koivun to the brink of the 3M Open. But for those who have seen that story before – PGA Tour devotees who are always watching, always listening, etc. – it was Scheffler’s thoughts from earlier in the week that I found most interesting.

When asked about Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau and the foundation conflicts in golf, Scheffler proved (and) does not think like TV hosts, media members or marketing managers. He doesn’t even think like a golf fan. No, the rivalry between the players is not suitable for him. The jabs between the players are not suitable for him. His opponent, every week, is the golf course. Nothing more, nothing less.

And isn’t it the boiled down truth? A rival of the Renaissance Club, where he missed for the first time in almost four years in a course he could not understand. A new competitor at Royal Birkdale, where he can’t find the green all week. A new contender at TPC Twin Cities, who seemed to get enough of (another) second place finish. It’s always golfer vs. the golf course — how they perform versus how it plays. And you know what, that’s enough for golf sickos. That’s all the competition we really need.

Enter the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, the best category of independent competition is Charley Hull alone.

Hull is an all-gas-no-brakes kinda golfer. It rips the driver almost everywhere. He plays a strong style of golf that shows itself most on the weekend, when the players who follow the rules get stronger and the road up the leaderboard appears.

Lytham is all about riding the brake – moving your golf foot over that fairway, ready to stop. Its reputation precedes itself, where visitors already know what they are getting before they set foot on the premises. They found a flat navigation around holes made up of structures filled with 174 pots. But we decided not to live in the way we think of them, or in the way Royal Birkdale showed at the men’s Open – buildings built with ball-absorbing surrounds. Sand depots as real hazards.

We emphasize Charley Hull in this example because this year he saw the best golf of his life, but he is still waiting for the big reward of the championship. If it doesn’t happen this week on the west coast of England, we once again begin the long wait for next year’s big show, eight or nine months away. And it’s possible that no competitive player – except Nelly Korda, perhaps – has had as dramatic a relationship with links golf as Hull has. Just last week, for example, he explained how he had to change his mind about the event.

“Yeah, I just got out of my head that golf doesn’t treat me well, and it suits me,” he said.

One would think it would be a natural fit for him, as he was born and raised in the UK and spends a lot of time there throughout the year. It was after the US Women’s Open that she ran into a red-eye golf trip back home, which included a stop at this week’s Open host country. But there’s something about it that doesn’t speak to his golfing soul like the other majors.

“I love the US Open. The US Open to me is the crème de la creme,” Hull said last week. “The golf courses we play – they just fit my eye and, the links are hard to visualize. You just have to really visualize it and trust yourself.”

He speaks to a level of creativity, or creativity in attack, that Hull lacks. He would like to do as he did at that crème de la creme event last month, at the Riviera Country Club, and play ‘F—k it’ golf. He hit every pin, played driver on basically every tee box and was so good that he was rewarded. If he was chasing someone other than Korda, it would at least lead to a playoff spot.

“Today was f—k, really,” he said that night. “You know what I mean?”

Hull had reached eight under the 12th box, and if he had just stayed there, he would have been like Korda. But he made a few bogeys down the stretch, at least partly because he was I’m trying to 10 less. It all felt reminiscent of the last time she was at a major tournament, 12 months ago at the Women’s Open.

At Royal Porthcawl in Wales, Hull followed Miyu Yamashita in eleven shot after 36 holes cut. But then he went off on the weekend and carded a 66 before he had a single three-hole shot to play. That aggressive mentality, which comes with elite football – it’s just that it worked right in those direct links at that time.

You go back and watch the broadcast, and you’ll hear Hull deliberate with his team about club selection on the 16th tee. You’ll also hear Iona Stephen explain that there was one house in particular that was “a lot of trouble,” and that was the one to the left of the fairway. Hull hit the floor, took his caddy’s advice, and pulled that shot into the bunker. “Damnit,” she said. In a place where he couldn’t buy a single bogey, he found one that guaranteed one.

That’s what I’m thinking as we look ahead to Royal Lytham this week – a tug-of-war between Hull’s game as they try to play their own brand of golf on the links course. It almost worked in 2023, when she finished solo second to Lilia Vu, but that was on heatland courses and Vu won by six. Hull’s up-and-down relationship with the links has just happened different.

Lytham often appears outside and behind, like most open spaces. It requires precision over power, and it’s no wonder why Adam Scott was in perfect shape to win the Open there in 2012. And it makes more sense, perhaps, that when Scott faded, someone with an equally good hitting game – Ernie Els – took his place atop the leaderboard.

Two weeks ago, during open week, Lytham was as strong as anything. It was one of the courses that hotshot Lucas Herbert is preparing for the men’s Open. The area had not seen rain for most of the three weeks, and you saw that play out in nearby Birkdale, further down the coast. But this week? Mother Nature is expected to play a role. There is a lot of rain in the forecast and very cold conditions for the weekend. It will do to hear like a proper Open Tournament, all of that makes for one helluva competitor for someone trying to understand what that means for their game.