There were concerns during Thursday’s play at the Amundi Evian Championship when England’s Charley Hull began to feel faint during her second nine. After a sit-down at the third green she collapsed on the fourth tee. Following a 15-minute medical break she attempted to hit her tee shot but collapsed for a second time.
The BBC reported that, after being taken away from the course on a stretcher in a cart, she was given IV treatment. She withdrew from the tournament following the episode.
She later wrote on Instagram: “Not the @evianchamp I was hoping for. Been struggling with a virus all week but it got the better of me … thanks to the medics who took care of me and to all those who have reached out with messages of support, it’s really appreciated. Happy to say I’m feeling a lot better today, just gutted I can’t play the weekend at such a fantastic tournament.”
Nelly Korda, like the rest of the field, loves heading to Evian for the scenery. “The views are probably the prettiest we have on tour,” she said ahead of the first round. “Hitting bad shots out here is not as bad as hitting it somewhere else.”
Nonetheless, when play is as glacial as the ice at the top of the Alps, patience is tested.
“It’s just long,” Korda sighed. “That’s what irritates you. You never get into a flow. It’s like a waiting game. It’s no fun for spectators to see us sitting on a tee box.”
What would she like to see done? “Penalise a shot or two,” she said. “The harsher it is, the more [the slow players] are going to change.”
Korda suffered a very unusual case of déjà vu last week. Back in 2022 she was in third place during the final round at Evian as she played her approach to the sixth hole. It was a poor shot, pushed into the trees where a woman in pink flares, a flower power top and floppy white hat picked it up and celebrated her find.
It was an extraordinary scene, as if she was taking a stroll around a 1970s rock festival rather than down a fairway during a major championship.
The French television commentary was wonderful. They literally said: “Ooh la la! No madame! No madame! Aye, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay!”
Of course Korda was allowed to replace her ball but it didn’t help much as she carded a double bogey.
French was, of course, the ideal language when it all happened again during the third round on Saturday. Because yes, Korda again hit a stray shot at No. 6 (this time a pull from the tee). This time it hurtled towards a bush. After squeezing clear of it, a boy stepped forward, picked it up and offered it to someone in a sweet but flawed attempt to be helpful.
“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Tom Abbott on commentary. “Not again!” added Karen Stupples. A reminder for the future: find the fairway and green at No. 6.
England’s Lottie Woad was the talk of the town following the amateur’s sensational six-shot victory in the Ladies European Tour’s Irish Open the week before everyone traveled to France.
But she is far from Europe’s only exciting youngster (and potential 2026 Solheim Cup debutant).
Like Woad, Germany’s Helen Briem spent time last year at the top of the World Amateur Golf Ranking. The 19-year-old from Stuttgart also spent the second half of last year impressing when up against professionals.
In June she was a three-time winner on the second-tier LET Access Series and, after joining the pro ranks in July at 18, she added another win at that level in September’s Rose Ladies Open. A watching Justin Rose said: “She looks some player. She really stands out.”
He might have been referring to her height because Briem is 6-foot-3, but he was also, of course, talking about her golf. Later that month she won the LET’s La Sella Open and she arrived at Evian off a run of four straight top-five finishes.
Four years ago she was a spectator at the Evian Championship asking Nelly Korda for a selfie. Last week the pair of them carded 67s in the first round.
Germany’s Esther Henseleit was excited about the start of the LPGA’s European swing because it revived memories of a special few weeks for her in the middle of 2024.
If it was not quite a golden summer, it was very definitely a silver one, and it all kicked off with a seventh-place finish in Evian, her first top-10 on a course, and at an event she has great fondness for. A month later she carded a brilliant final-round 66 at Le Golf National to claim the silver medal in the Paris Olympics.
Soon afterwards she was second in the Scottish Open and briefly contended at the home of golf, St Andrews, in the AIG Women’s Open during early August.
It’s a spell she is unlikely to forget, of course, but even if she wanted to she probably couldn’t. Why not? Well, she revealed to GGP at a rooftop bar event in Munich at the BMW International Open two weeks ago that airport travel with an Olympic medal always guarantees interest at security and frequently prompts strangers to excitedly reveal where they were when they watched her add to Germany’s medal tally. “Everyone seems to have a story,” she said with a laugh. “And everyone wants to have a look at the medal.”
Thinking of the Olympics there was a genuine sense at last year’s Evian Championship that the Paris Games would act as an inspiration for those in the field who had been selected to represent their countries.
The notion that the great festival of sport was metaphorically on the horizon was enhanced by the fact that the Olympic Museum is quite literally on the horizon (on the other side of Lake Geneva in Lausanne, Switzerland). Amy Yang even took the time to visit it, so excited was she by the glory of the famous five rings.
It eventually transpired that last year’s Evian winner was motivated by the Olympics but not in the sense first expected. Because Ayaka Furue slipped out of Team Japan’s automatic spots after the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship (the final qualifying event) and her caddie, the Scotsman Michael Scott, revealed that she was devastated.
But Furue used her hurt in the best way possible and said after lifting the trophy: “I might have missed out on the Paris Olympics but I have won in France.”.
SCORING
Matt Cooper