Miyu Yamashita won the Women’s Open, but Charley Hull stole the show

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PORTHCAWL, Wales – For Miyu Yamashita, Sunday evening signalled it was finally time to celebrate. The Japanese golfer and LPGA rookie had just won her first major, the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl, one day after turning 24.

Yamashita looked unflappable ever since she grabbed hold of the lead on Friday and never let go. She made her first and only bogey of the day on the 17th hole. Before then, she had been the only player not to bogey a single hole in the closing round of the championship.

The unflappable Yamashita was sprayed with champagne by her peers after holding par on 18 and finishing at 11-under-par, two shots clear of runners-up Charley Hull and Minami Katsu. It was Hull’s fourth time finishing second at a major tournament, meaning the wait for a maiden major goes on for the Englishwoman who turned professional in 2013 and was playing in her 60th major this weekend.

For a time at the wind-swamped Royal Porthcawl, it felt like Hull might be the first woman to pull off an 11-shot comeback in a major championship. Her birdie on No. 14 was a wonderful long putt, which pleased the growing gallery of fans that only seemed to increase in number and voice with every shot she made. Her putt was the best of the lot and took her within one of Yamashita, whose calm expression and handling of the course never altered no matter where her ball ended up.

Hull dropped shots at hole Nos. 16 and 17, losing her shot to catch Yamashita in the process, and settled for a round of 69. Only amateur Paula Martin Sampredro had a better round on Sunday.

The former child prodigy, now 29, felt this might be her time as she walked past the shiny cylinder trophy when teeing off in the afternoon. She walked past it, hoping to come back in a few hours time and collect it.

On Saturday night, Hull said she was going to relish the chase. She wanted to hunt down Yamashita, who in her yellow New Balance jumper was easy to spot but impossible to catch.

Yamashita took the lead on Friday and never let go of it for her first major win. (Luke Walker / Getty Images)

Preparation for the tournament for Hull was not as she had planned, and it led her to believe she might not even make the cut.

She had collapsed 12 holes into her first round of the Evian Championship in July. She was stretchered off the fairway in France and withdrew from the major. She had been struggling with a virus, and to add to her misfortune strained her back lifting a heavy box from her car. Both things messed up her training schedule, and in three weeks, through illness and injury, she lost 4kg in weight.

“I’m not hitting it the best coming into this week which is very frustrating because it’s an event I’ve been looking forward to playing all year,” Hull said the day before the tournament began. “I’ve just got to go out there with what I’ve got. It’s just a game of golf. You’ve got to go out there and have fun.”

And that is what she did.

Hull came into this major with the pressure off. It was her compatriot, Lottie Woad, the pre-tournament favourite, who had to deal with the bulk of the hype and headlines. The kind of which Hull has been dealing with since the age of 9, when she was playing against grown adults and won a women’s championship competition at Turnberry.

A keen jogger, Hull looked out of the running after Day 1 when she was tied for 74th. That opening round of 73 did not deter her. After 36 holes, she was at even par and 11 strokes behind the top of the leaderboard, but well within the cut line. On Saturday, she ferociously swept her way around the golf course, holing seven birdies and putting herself into contention. As she ended the day tied for fourth, she returned to conversations she had been absent from.

Beneath her white TaylorMade cap she had a look in her eyes. A determination and a dream lived there, just like always. On Saturday, edited photographs appeared on the AIG Women’s Open’s Instagram account of Hull playing her round alongside pictures of her playing golf as a child. They felt profoundly moving then and feel even more so now.

She was dressed in all black on Sunday, her sleeves rolled up as she attacked each hole and refused to look at the leaderboard. She wanted to tap into her mindset from 2016 when after five top-10 finishes on the LPGA circuit, she won at the CME Group Tour Championship in Florida. One of the key factors then was taking it one shot at a time and avoiding the leaderboard until the final hole.

Yamashita’s game plan was not too dissimilar.

“You just try and shoot the best score you can really,” said New Zealander John Bennett, Yamashita’s winning caddie. “It’s not until you get down to the last five or six holes you take notice of what’s going on. I could hear the roars for Charley out there and I knew she was doing something pretty special.”

Hull, who hit five birdies on Sunday, loved the adrenaline hit she got from each cheer but would have loved it even more to know how it sounded had she been the one putting for her first major. With Welsh dragons as golf club covers, Hull breathed fire and life into the tournament. And for that, there was a loud reception awaiting her as she walked down the 18th fairway.

“At the end of the day, it’s just a game,” she said, with tears almost building but not quite. Hull is tough and has been through this before.

In 2023, she finished as runner-up to Lilia Vu at Walton Heath in Surrey. They had started the day as co-leaders but the American stormed out of the tee box and won by six shots. In the same year, Hull finished tied for second at the U.S. Women’s Open.

And still for Hull, who played on this very course at age 14, there is hope that next time will be the right time for the girl from Kettering, Northamptonshire, who knows golf isn’t everything but will still give it everything until she no longer can.

(Top photo: Luke Walker / Getty Images)

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