Playing in the relaxed and fun team format of the Aramco Team Series Finals in Riyadh this week is encouraging players to speak openly and candidly about their lives.

For 2018 British Open champion Georgia Hall, it has given her time to reflect on her most disappointing season since she turned professional. Hall has dropped out of the Top 50 of the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings for the first time since she turning professional in 2014.

“You always have a year which isn’t your best and this year that’s happened to me,” admitted Hall, after shooting a level-par 72 in the opening round of the Aramco Team Series Finals in Riyadh. “I feel like I let the team down today, but I’m going to go away after this week and have a break, improve my work ethic then in a month or two get back out there ready.”

Charley Hull is my friend but she won’t practice with me

Hall’s best friend Charley Hull, in comparison, has got off to a hot start on Saudi soil, opening up with a seven-under-par 65 around Riyadh Golf Club, taking the joint clubhouse lead alongside Pia Babnik and Luna Sobron

The two English players grew up playing golf together, travel together and are best friends. They formed a successful foursomes partnership, playing for Team Europe in September’s Solheim Cup matches in Washington DC. Despite their obvious course dynamic, Hull admits that they hardly ever play golf together. 

“Charley won’t play a practice round with me because every time she does she doesn’t play well,” Hull jokes. “So I’m not allowed to play a practice round with her any more, which is a shame.”

Putting is the key to off-season improvement

Hall’s plans for the off-season include working on the weakest part of her game at the moment, her putting. “I feel like I’m playing quite steady golf but I’m just not making enough birdies and holing putts,” she explains. “I hope to get away somewhere warm to work on my game this winter, as December and January aren’t good months in the UK.”

Georgia Hall hoping to rediscover old form

Hall is hoping to re-find the magic that propelled her into the global golfing spotlight in 2018, when she won the Women’s British Open, a major championship title that was “in my childhood dreams,” Following the victory Hall was awarded an MBE by the late Queen. But her most significant memory, she says, was getting to play golf with her childhood idol Tiger Woods at The Home of Golf, St. Andrews.

“Winning the British Open didn’t change me as a person but it created more opportunities,” she recalls. “Like getting to play golf with Tiger Woods at St. Andrews. I didn’t realise what that title meant at the time, but to have that against my name is amazing.”

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