Martin Dempster: Charley Hull wrong to turn her nose up at Curtis Cup chance

WHILE Catriona Matthew is up near the top of the list when it comes to golfers I respect and admire, we don’t share the same opinion about Charley Hull, the young English player who has kicked up a right stooshie in the countdown to this year’s Curtis Cup.

Hull, the highest-ranked English amateur at the moment, was selected in the Great Britain & Ireland squad to attend a training get-together later this month at Nairn, where the biennial match against the Americans will also be held in June.

It was organised by the Ladies Golf Union on the back of something similar having proved immensely helpful as GB&I won the Walker Cup, the men’s equivalent, under the captaincy of Nigel Edwards at Royal Aberdeen last September. Having been defeated by the Americans in the last seven stagings of the Curtis Cup, the home team needs the best preparation it can possibly get simply to have a chance of stopping that rot, so the LGU should be praised for investing in such an exercise.

It will give the eight players selected at the end of it valuable experience of getting a feel for the splendid course ahead of the event and it’s no surprise surely that the LGU asked players to show some commitment to the GB&I cause by signing up to the cause.

This only came to light after Hull, a 15-year-old, declined to participate in the squad session and instead chose to play in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first professional women’s major of the year.

Matthew, a three-time Curtis Cup player, backed her decision. So, too, did Karen Stupples, another former Women’s British Open champion. They both said the LGU were attaching too much importance to the training weekend. For me, Hull, who has now been dropped from the squad, having her head turned by an invitation to play in a professional tournament at such a young age sums up the way a lot of leading amateurs think about events like the Curtis Cup and Walker Cups these days.

They were once the ultimate goal, the icing on the cake, but not any more. It doesn’t matter a jot to many of them if they follow in the footsteps of some of the finest golfers GB&I has produced over the years. Sure, there’s no guarantee you’ll go on to become a successful professional if you represent GB&I. In fact, there are lots of players over the years who’ve fallen off the radar completely after donning those colours. It is wrong, however, for a 15-year-old to be turning her nose up at such an opportunity and I would stick by that even if Hull goes on to become the women’s world No 1.

Let’s turn the clock back and get amateurs thinking like they once did. For starters, they should be trying to prove themselves as winners before they should even be thinking about pursuing a career in the paid ranks. Once that’s the case, they should be desperate to receive a letter or email telling them they’ve been rewarded with honours such as Curtis Cup and Walker Cup caps.

Ever since Nairn was selected as this year’s venue, excitement has been growing in the town and, for club staff and officials, it will be a proud occasion, just as it was when the course staged the 1999 Walker Cup.

The winning GB&I team then included the likes of Luke Donald and Paul Casey, both of whom valued the event as a key stepping stones in their careers. It’s a pity Charley Hull doesn’t share the same outlook.