Love her or loathe her, it is impossible to argue that Charley Hull hasn’t done a lot for the women’s game since she burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old back in 2012.
Hull, 30, has nine professional victories to her name, as well as five runner-up finishes in the major championships.
She is honest as the day is long and never tries to be someone she isn’t.
Whether you like Charley Hull or not, she definitely deserves respect for being completely authentic if nothing else.
Hull regularly causes controversy by speaking her mind, and she has done exactly that once again by suggesting a new rule change to help combat slow play.
Charley Hull wants slow play outlawed from the game
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that one of Hull’s biggest pet peeves is slow play.
The Englishwoman is one of the fastest players in the game, if not the fastest.
When speaking to Golfweek, Hull responded when asked how she would fix the slow play problem that has infected the professional game.
“Oh, God, I don’t know,“ Hull said.
“I think you should get banned from the tour for a year or a three-month ban to start off with, because I want to play golf and I’m sure the slow players want to play golf.
“If the punishment is strict enough, you’re not gonna play slower. You would make sure you’d play a lot quicker than we do.“
That would be quite an extreme measure, but perhaps golfing authorities need to start tackling the issue of slow play with more ruthlessness.
Governing bodies must address slow play issue urgently
There is absolutely no reason why professional golfers should take more than four hours and 30 minutes to play a round.
Of course, slow play is not something that has only affected the women’s game. It is a problem that has plagued the men’s game as well.
At Oakmont during the US Open last year, rounds were taking more than six hours to complete, and the same thing happened this year at Shinnecock Hills.
The main problem for the game of golf in general is that young children watching the sport will quickly lose interest if rounds take so long.
There is also the issue of men and women being out of the house for too long unless something changes very quickly.
The professionals need to set the standards for the amateurs to follow.
And Charley Hull’s suggestion that suspensions should be dished out for slow play may well be the only solution that actually helps tackle slow play.