PORTLAND, Ore. – Katherine Hull sat down in a folding chair looking slightly frazzled. She had over 100 text messages on her cell phone and her e-mail inbox was overflowing with congratulatory notes. Three days removed from her first LPGA victory, Hull tried to process exactly what just happened.
“I had like five personalities on the golf course last Thursday,” said Hull after a day of practice at the Safeway Classic. “I told my caddie I could literally walk off the golf course and not think twice.”
That was Thursday. Three days later she hoisted the CN Canadian Women’s Open trophy. What turned things around? Call it caddie intervention. Or divine intervention. Either way, Hull got the message.
“(My caddie) kind of jumped in my face, which was a good thing, walking onto the 14th tee box,” said Hull of her looper, John Powell. “He said ‘If you’re not going to play for yourself, then do it for the kids in Africa. You have a God-given talent.’ ”
Part of being a good caddie is knowing when to dispense advice, and when to keep quiet. Powell has worked on the LPGA for 11 years and has been with Hull since April. Anyone who spends quality time with Katherine knows she’s a deeply spiritual person. Powell watched her jump on an emotional roller-coaster early on in Canada and knew something needed to be said. For Hull, nothing cuts to the core faster than a little God talk.
“I talked to all the personalities that day,” Powell said. “And finally one listened.”
Powell’s role in Hull’s victory walk started even earlier that week. While on a bike ride, the idea came to him to write Hull a card, listing several scriptures.
The son of a former nun, Powell grew up an altar boy and went to a Catholic college, working toward a minor in theology. Still, giving scriptures to Hull, a born-again believer, was an uncharacteristic move for Powell, to say the least.
On Thursday Powell reminded Hull to go home and look up the scriptures he’d given her. Hull took it a step further and wrote them down on several sheets of paper. She carried them around the rest of the week and worked on memorizing them with Powell throughout the round.
One week later she’s still carrying around those crumpled sheets of paper, telling her friends in the tour fellowship about the week that changed her life.
On Tuesday night her prayer group on tour took her out to dinner. On Wednesday she went to Women’s Professional Golf Fellowship and shared a testimony of her experience.
“We can finally have cake!” said Cris Stevens, who leads the tour’s fellowship. Each time a fellowship member wins on tour, they eat cake. Lorena Ochoa was a regular attendee last year, and well, there was lots of cake.
At the start of the season, Hull admitted she’d lost her focus as a professional. After leaving Pepperdine in 2003 as the top collegiate player, Hull quit making goals once she got her tour card. She began to “accept mediocrity.”
Enter Aussie swing coach Steve McRae. Hull began working with McRae almost two years ago on the range at Royal Sydney. He asked if she could hit a cut shot. She said “No.”
He taught her the importance of learning to work the ball both ways and pushed her to set some objectives.
She came into this season with three clear goals: Win a tournament; finish the season in the top 30 on the money list; and build a school in Africa.
The school in Africa is through the World Vision organization and costs $10,000. Hull got the notion after accompanying Betsy King and several other players on a trip to Rwanda as part of Golf Fore Africa, a tour charity aimed at helping orphans.
“After a trip like that I still think about wearing a cleaner pair of shoes, and there are kids who don’t even have shoes,” Hull said. “ ‘Hello, did Africa not teach you anything?’ It’s very hard to break what we’ve been believing.”
Last week in Canada, Hull remembered what it means to believe. She wrote “Play for God” in her yardage book and, thanks to Powell, gave herself an attitude adjustment.
“I think like a lot of people out here, she just didn’t believe,” said Powell, who wasn’t referring to theology.
Hull’s faith in a lot of things got strengthened that week. Most notably, herself.
Posted: 8/21/2008
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