Golf: Charley Hull picked for Curtis Cup after all as GB&I selectors perform U-turn

GREAT Britain & Ireland’s selectors took the decision themselves to open the Curtis Cup door again to Charley Hull but it still remains to be seen if the seventh-ranked woman amateur in the world will be in the home team at Nairn this summer.

The saga surrounding the English teenager – she was named in the squad for last weekend’s three-day trial at the match venue then told she would not be selected for the clash in June after missing the get-together to prepare for this week’s Kraft Nabisco Championship – took another twist yesterday.

It came as Hull was picked, after all, in the eight-strong team after a dramatic U-turn by the selection panel, which had come in for widespread criticism, led by major winners Catriona Matthew and Karen Stupples, over its original decision. “The selection panel overturned its own decision as it felt there were not eight better players,” Susan Simpson, the LGU’s head of golf operations, told The Scotsman.

She also explained the wording of the LGU’s press release announcing the team, which stated that 16-year-old Hull “has been given the opportunity by the independent selection panel of the LGU to turn out for the GB&I team for the 37th Curtis Cup match against the United States”.

On that, Simpson revealed that Hull had still to let the LGU know if she would be playing at Nairn on 8-10 June. “Charley still has to confirm her place by 12 noon on Monday,” she added.

Speaking at the beginning of the month, Simpson said that Hull had been aware of the consequences of missing the trial. “We made it plain to the players that, if they didn’t play in the training session, they wouldn’t play in the match. They signed an agreement,” said Simpson at the time Hull was dropped from the squad.

With the player having now been welcomed back into the fold without showing an enormous commitment to the GB&I cause so far – Ireland’s Stephanie Meadow, by contrast, returned from her college in America specifically for the trial – it’s doubtful that similar ‘agreements’ will be in place in the future.

Hull’s inclusion wasn’t the only surprise sprung by the selectors, who, in fairness, had a tough job to whittle the contenders down to eight spots, raising the question that officials on both sides of the Atlantic need to sit down and perhaps look at increasing the number of players involved in the biennial encounter.

For instance, while Leona Maguire got the nod, her twin Lisa had to be content with first reserve, which has already caused the odd eyebrow to be raised given that the latter won the European Ladies Championship last year in tough conditions at Noordwijkse Golf Club in the Netherlands.

It will also be a shock to some that Hull’s Woburn clubmate, Lauren Taylor, has been overlooked, though that decision was made purely on fitness after the 17-year-old, who was BBC’s Young Sports Personality of the Year for 2011, attended the Nairn trial but was unable to play due to an injury she is nursing.

“Lauren is unable to play full shots at the moment and the selection panel felt they could not take a chance on her being 100 per cent fit in time for three days’ play at the highest amateur international level of a Curtis Cup match,” said the LGU in its statement.

Only three of the side – Maguire, Pamela Pretswell and Holly Clyburn – have Curtis Cup experience, having all played in the team beaten 12.5-7.5 in Massachusetts two years ago, but Tegwen Matthews, the team captain, believes GB&I have come up with a “winning formula” as they bid to stop the rot after seven successive defeats at the hands of the Americans. “I am confident that the mix of experience, talent and enthusiasm within this team will prove to be a winning formula for success and that they will be playing with immense pride and desire to bring the Curtis Cup back home,” said the Welsh woman.