LISA HALL RETURNING TO EUROPE
AND WANTS TO PLAY IN WOMEN's
BRITISH OPEN AT ST ANDREWS
A few years ago, the disappearance of England's Lisa (Hackney) Hall was one of the biggest mysteries in professional golf. The 1997 LPGA Rookie of the Year - she finished in the top 10 in three majors in her first pro season - and two-time European Solheim Cup team member seemingly had it all. Lisa, pictured right, from Stoke-on-Trent had extraordinary creativity on the golf course, contended down the wire for the 1998 McDonald's LPGA Championship against Se Ri Pak and Liselotte Neumann, and appeared to be asserting herself as one of the top players on the LPGA Tour.
But confidence and swing issues ultimately surfaced and Lisa dropped out of tournament golf. She resurfaced on the Duramed Futures Tour a few years later, regained her LPGA Tour card, and then dropped back out.
Last year, she rejoined the Duramed Futures Tour, and also played on the Ladies European Tour, where she finished third in Switzerland. Realising her comfort level back home in Europe, Hall played her last 2007 tournament on the Duramed Futures Tour in Frisco, Texas last week, where she tied for 13th.
"To not just be a golf score is key," she said. "I went through a time with too much of that. I don't judge myself by how I play golf now."
Hall says she's not going back to Europe this season for the sole purpose of trying to make the European Solheim Cup team.
GOOD GOLF IS THE GOAL
"Is it why I'm playing? No," she said. "Do I think I'm capable? Yes. But I don't see that as a crowning achievement and I don't need it to validate what I'm trying to do. Playing good golf is the goal. The outcome is not my motivation."
Hall is admittedly motivated to play in this year's Women's British Open, which will be held at the Old Course at St Andrews. The last time she played St. Andrews, she was around 13 years old and just getting started in the game.
"With the whole history of St. Andrews itself, and now for women to have full access into the clubhouse is a real sign of the times," she said. "To be there again under those conditions at a women's major championship would be magical."
+Lisa Hall will be 40 on September 24. She married English-born pro Martin Hall in 1998. She graduated from the University of Florida with a BA in Sociology before turning professional in January 1991. She won the 1995 Indonesian Open and also topped the Asian Order of Merit that year. In 1996 Lisa won the Welsh Women's Open.