Charley Hull has never been one to sugarcoat a bad day on the course, and Saturday at the AIG Women’s Open gave her plenty to be honest about. After two rounds that kept her firmly inside the mix, her third-round start unraveled fast, and by the time she reached the media center, there was no dressing it up. Facing the media afterward, she offered a blunt assessment of her performance.

“I was pretty proud at like the first six holes. [But] I played like a 10-handicapper, I felt,” Hull said about her 3-over in the opening six holes. “I missed three putts that I should have holed from like five feet in, and I think that would’ve kept me level par instead of being 3-over.”

Those three-putt misses set the tone for a rocky start, but Hull’s recovery down the stretch changed the complexion of her round entirely.

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“Then I did have a bit of a bounceback, and I hit a great shot into the last hole, and it looked like the putt was going to be kind of quick down that slope, so I hit it on a great line and just left it short. But, no, I was pretty happy with the way I finished,” she added.

Hull’s third round got off to the worst possible start, as she carded bogeys on the 1st, 3rd, and 6th holes to sit 3-over through six. All three mistakes came from inside five feet, making the sluggish opening even more frustrating. 

Still, the Englishwoman showed resilience by battling her way back into the round. She responded with back-to-back birdies at the 7th and 8th before giving one shot back with a bogey at the 10th. From there, Hull steadied herself, playing the remainder of the round bogey-free while adding two more birdies to sign for an even-par 71.

The performance followed an opening-round 69 on Thursday, when she mixed six birdies with four bogeys to finish 2-under. She followed that with a roller-coaster second-round 71, including three birdies and three bogeys, to stay at 2-under overall heading into the weekend. Despite the rocky start on Saturday, Hull credited her recovery in large part to the guidance of her long-time caddie, Adam Woodward. 

“Just thought I [could] get it back here,” Hull added about what she felt like in the back nine. “Nice 5-iron into this hole. Adz actually reminded me of the 5 that I hit in practice very closely. Just said, ‘Hit the same shot,’ and I did actually, so it was good.”

Heading into the final round, Hull sits five shots behind leader Yealimi Noh and just two strokes adrift of the quartet tied for second. While overturning a five-shot deficit to claim the title will be a tall order, a runner-up finish remains well within reach if she can put together a strong Sunday charge. 

Looking ahead, Charley Hull has revealed what her approach will be like on Sunday.

Charley Hull doesn’t want to pressure herself

Compared to Hull, who turned professional in 2013 and has been playing golf since an early age, Noh is still chasing her first major title. Sunday nerves at a major have a way of getting to even the best players, and that’s exactly the kind of opening Hull needs to make a late move up the leaderboard.

But Hull doesn’t want to put pressure on herself, as she talked about her approach in the final round. 

“I just want to go out there and enjoy it tomorrow,” she said. “Not put much pressure on myself. Just go out there and have fun and trust my swing.”

She further explained that adapting to two straight weeks of links golf had made it difficult to trust her swing, particularly with her iron play. Most weeks, Hull plays tree-lined target golf, flying the ball straight at a flag she can see clearly. Links golf demands reading ground contours and letting shots run out, a skill she’s admitted takes longer to trust, saying it “is just hard to visualize.”

Royal Lytham & St. Annes doesn’t make things easier. It’s one of the tightest tracks on the rotation, narrow fairways lined with bunkers that punish anything off-line, a stark contrast to the aggressive, eye-led golf Hull usually plays. She admitted as much herself, saying the layout “is not really” one that suits her eye.

Hull, of course, is coming off a T44 finish at the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open. She finished tied for 2nd at the U.S. Women’s Open. If she can reach that spot at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Course, it will mark her sixth runner-up finish at a major, extending a pattern that dates back to the 2016 ANA Inspiration and has since piled up with runner-ups at the AIG Women’s Open (Walton Heath, Royal Porthcawl) and this June’s U.S. Women’s Open at Riviera. Four of those five near-misses have come in the past three years, a stretch that shows she’s consistently in the mix but still searching for the finish to match.

Sunday will show whether Hull can close that gap. She already proved she can spot the leak in her round and plug it, the back nine was proof of that. The real test is doing it from the first tee, not after three bogeys have already put her on the back foot. Start clean, and the two-shot gap to the leaders is well within her reach.