News / Tournaments & Events 4 weeks ago

CHARLEY HULL VICTORIOUS; SHOOTS FINAL DAY 66 AT ARAMCO TEAM SERIES PRESENTED BY PIF – RIYADH TO EARN FIRST WIN SINCE 2022

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [1 November 2024] – It was all smiles for England’s Charley Hull at Riyadh Golf Club, after a near faultless week landed her a first tournament win since 2022, at the Aramco Team Series presented by PIF – Riyadh, with a final score of 18-under-par.

The win is Hull’s sixth as a professional, and her fourth on the Ladies European Tour (LET), having won on the tour at the Aramco Team Series presented by PIF in New York in 2021. This was also the English star’s biggest ever margin of victory, three strokes clear of Denmark’s Nicole Broch Estrup.

“Yeah, I felt really sharp, I played very solidly today,” said Hull on the win. “I made it a bogey on the par five 17th and the par three, but that was just two three putts. So quite long putts, in all fairness, and they got away from me a little bit, but felt like I held my game together pretty well. And 18 under for three days is a pretty good score.

Hull felt that the elusive win was “right around the corner” in her pre-tournament press conference, and after a front nine of five-under-par, she was proved right, catapulting herself ahead of Slovenian Pia Babnik to lead down the stretch.

Babnik held a two-stroke lead at the start of play and, grouped with Hull and Fernandez Cano, was looking to round off a remarkable week following some struggles in recent times.

However, it was Hull that took the initiative early on, playing aggressively with her approach shots to give herself the best opportunities on the greens, capitalizing with her putter.

This was underlined on the par-5 fifth hole, where Hull’s accurate drive allowed her to play over the water and attack the green. Whilst it dropped just short, Hull capped it off with an excellent up and down, using her wedge to drop the ball next to the pin for a simple tap-in birdie.

“I was actually chatting to someone who was quite close to me before I started, and he said, get off to a fast start, try and get ahead,” said Hull on her fast start. “That's what I did – and it’s a good job I listened to them!”

Hull took the mentality into the back nine, and after starting with two pars, birdied the par-five 11th, moving her four strokes clear of Babnik, with victory in her sight.

A couple of nervy moments came with bogeys on the 14th and 17th hole, but Hull kept her composure to par the final hole, with friends Georgia Hall and Annabell Dimmock ready to celebrate with her after holing the winning putt.

Hull will have her mind now on further wins, and looking to add to her silverware, before beginning her bid for a first major title in 2025.

“I’m going home for a week, before I head back to America for the last two events in the LPGA Tour, which is the ANNIKA event, and then the CME Group Tour Championship. I like the Tour championship golf course. I won there in 2016, so I'm looking forward to them too, and then home for Christmas – I can't wait.”

Impact in Saudi

Hull’s victory was the final of this season’s five $1million Aramco Team Series presented by PIF tournaments on the LET, all organized by Golf Saudi, who seek to grow the game of golf domestically and around the world by hosting elite-level golf events.

Noah Alireza, Golf Saudi CEO, said: “What an incredible week of golf we’ve enjoyed here in Riyadh – and what fitting and deserving champions we have in both Charley Hull and Team Tamburlini, who played some truly amazing golf over the last three days.

“This week we have had a greater on-course Saudi impact than ever before at a Golf Saudi event. We are immensely proud of Riyadh Golf Course and our new-look clubhouse being designed, built and maintained by Saudis, so to have a record ten Saudi golfers compete as amateurs here on that golf course in the Aramco Team Series – Riyadh is a huge achievement for us and for golf in Saudi Arabia.

“We also welcomed fantastic crowds over the last few days, and celebrated the 58 new Saudi golfers to have completed our revamped, world-first Go Golf free-to-learn coaching initiative. With a further 1,800 new golfers registered for Go Golf, we can feel the impact events like these, as well as everything else we’re doing in golf here, are having. All of these are landmark moments as we continue to grow golf in Saudi Arabia.

“I’d like to thank all the players and partners who helped make this an unforgettable week of golf and we look forward to the return of the Aramco Team Series presented by PIF next year.”

For more information on the event series, please visit www.aramcoteamseries.com