Charley Hull’s Viral Guilty Pleasure Photo: She Tells All

Charley Hull answers questions with a calm self-belief that is hard to miss. She projects the rare confidence of someone who knows exactly who she is and what she can achieve.

Self-assured is perhaps the most fitting description of the British golfer, who is ranked eighth in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings. Hull is also notably unwilling to hide behind a carefully managed public image, speaking candidly about her opinions and sharing parts of her life that many elite athletes prefer to keep private.

Her social media accounts offer the clearest evidence of that openness. Images of glamorous occasions appear alongside tournament trophies and clips from her training sessions. Even Hull’s Instagram bio, which is followed by more than 860,000 people, reflects her direct personality with the line: “Shy kids don’t get sweets.”

Hull’s growing popularity has been driven partly by that unfiltered social media presence, particularly after a now-famous photograph showed the then-30-year-old walking the course with a cigarette in her mouth. Against that backdrop, it seemed fitting that she joined the on!vitational, a celebrity simulator golf tournament sponsored by a nicotine brand and staged at the SoFi Center in South Florida.

Over the coming weeks, Hull will return frequently to the high-tech venue for the inaugural WTGL season. The women’s counterpart to the TGL simulator league features a strong lineup, including Hull, Lydia Ko, Rose Zhang, Michelle Wie and Lexi Thompson.

Before taking her first swings on the simulator, Hull spoke exclusively to the Daily Mail about the new competition, her public image and the wider future of women’s sports.

Hull has only a few minutes to spare, squeezing in the conversation while grabbing something to eat—although, to her horror, her order arrives incorrectly—and catching up with her fellow Team Malbon competitors.

Although the WTGL season will keep her at the Florida indoor golf facility for long stretches from November, Hull intends to spend as much time as possible back home in the UK.

“I literally fly home and fly back,” Hull told the Daily Mail, underscoring how strongly she feels about her family and hometown. “I’ve been in America before for a couple days for a photo shoot. I flew home for 24 hours, then just came back to America and did the same spot because I miss home that much.”

“You know what I like?” she added. “I just like waking up in my own area, in my own bed, knowing that I can go and see my mum and dad, see my friends and do normal things. I like being around my mum and dad a lot. I have great parents. I couldn’t have asked for a better mum and dad growing up.”

Hull was recently back in the UK, where she posted a series of photographs from a celebration for her friend and fellow professional golfer Georgia Hall.

“She had a baby and her wedding is in a few months’ time, so I took her away,” Hull explained, revealing that the pair spent time at Estelle Manor.

One photograph drew particular attention: Hull showed off her toned stomach and legs in a light blue bikini. The post, which also included images of her in dressing gowns and cocktail outfits, attracted more than 50,000 likes.

“It was so much fun. We were having mini photo shoots in the room. I thought it was a nice bikini picture, so that’s why I posted it. I’m proud of my body.”

Hull made that confidence even more apparent on Thursday when she told fans that she had completed a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, marking one of her boldest public appearances yet.

Writing “I did a thing…” in the caption, Hull appeared wearing only a towel, prompting an immediate wave of reactions in the comments on Instagram. It is not yet known when the full Sports Illustrated Swimsuit shoot will be released.

On her recent girls’ trip, meanwhile, Hull reveals that she decided to take all her photos on a Canon camera, instead of her phone: ‘I wanted to get that because I thought I want to capture these moments without being on my phone there.’

With her rise to fame within the world of golf and beyond, Hull’s time is more precious than ever: ‘I haven’t got as much time as I’d like to, so I’m looking forward to this offseason just to completely get away and just chill with my friends and family at home.’

The choice to show off as much of her life as she does differs from the norm. Hull’s penchant for posting what some may call behind the scenes content stems less from a naivety but more of how she views herself.

‘I don’t see myself as somebody famous,’ she admitted. ‘I just see myself as just a good golfer, and I just post like my friends post who don’t play golf, who aren’t in the public eye. Yeah, that’s just the way I am.’

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In truth, though, her fame has skyrocketed in recent months, and she can even count the president among her biggest fans.

Hull was invited to join Donald Trump for a state banquet at Windsor Castle last month, and she later revealed he had even asked her for a round of golf. 

‘I spoke to him last night and he has invited me (to play),’ Hull told BBC Radio 5 Live at the time.

‘He has said he wants to sort a game out. That is pretty cool. Last year he reached out actually to my agent and he wanted to play at the end of the year but I think I was going on holiday.

‘We spoke about it last night and we are really going to try and sort a game out before the end of the year, which will be pretty cool.’

The on!vitational marked Hull’s first time hitting on the simulator. While Malbon ended up falling to eventual winners Team Grass League, featuring the likes of Paige Spiranac, Hull will aim to have more success with Atlanta Drive GC in WTGL. Hull is joined by Minjee Lee, Andrea Lee, Yuka Saso and Nataliya Guseva as one of five teams in the league.

There are plans and hopes to expand past the inaugural season, much like their men’s league counterparts. But that’s not the only parallel between the two leagues. Much like how men’s world No 1 Scottie Scheffler is not on a TGL team, women’s world No 1 Nelly Korda is also absent from the WTGL roster.

But Korda’s reasons are specific. In January, she called it a ‘huge and unbelievable miss’ for the stars of the LPGA to compete alongside and against the men in TGL.

‘It would have been the first time that men and women were on the same playing field,’ she told Golfweek at the time. ‘But I also think it’s great that we are getting this opportunity, so those are my mixed feelings.’

TGL co-founder Rory McIlroy disagreed with Korda’s assessment, saying: ‘I think when we talked about WTGL, obviously there were talks of a mixed team… But I do think that it is important to give the women their own platform and encourage them to grow that themselves.’

Hull agrees with McIlroy: ‘I can understand [Nelly], where she’s coming from. But, I do think it’s a great opportunity. You’ve got to start somewhere and the men play here, so now they’ve started the WTGL for us, which is great. But who’s to say that they won’t probably pursue something in the future of us playing together?’

It’s an interesting time to start a women’s professional sports league in the United States. While women’s sports are perhaps more popular than they ever have been, they also have become a lightning rod for controversy – especially the WNBA.

Much of that controversy is less about the players themselves and more about the perception of women athletes from outsiders. Many comments and debates on social media revolve around the shock of some people to find that women are, in fact, very competitive when it comes to professional sports.

Other debates center around the way female athletes look and present themselves compared with their male counterparts.

When asking Hull about these discussions, she took a pause before offering her thoughts: ‘I think that women have got an advantage in sports for a whole different audience to what men in sports have. 

‘So rather than sexualize it and look down on it and say you’re turning sports backwards, embrace it and also be good at the sport. Like, so what if a pretty girl is playing good? She’s pretty, she looks good and she’s playing good. 

‘And then so what if there’s someone else who just loves playing their sport and doesn’t care what they look like, and they’re playing good as well? No one should be frowned upon. I think you should just embrace all of it.’

Later, she added: ‘I think, naturally, if you were to put me against a 30-year-old male that has been playing golf the same time as me, they are naturally stronger. If there’s 100 men and there’s 100 women, the percentage of the men being better than the women are not necessarily more skillful, it’s because they’re more powerful.

‘But then you’ll get a couple women that will beat them, even the top ones. And I think that’s something that’s really cool. I don’t think it should be “the man’s better than the women or the women’s better than the men.” It’s an achievement to get to the top of your sport whether you’re a man or a woman.’ 

As for the other debate, where men may be shocked to discover how competitive women athletes are, Hull cracked a wry smile when asked if she finds it patronizing.

‘No, I love it,’ she said with a grin. ‘Because it bites them in the butt. I love it because then it’s just like “ha!” you know what I mean? Like it kind of makes me want to strive to do better.’