Rules for Thee, Not For Me
Charley Hull isn’t allowed to smoke at Le Golf National, but that hasn’t stopped fans from lighting up
Sarah Stier
The big golf news out of Paris on Tuesday was that viral sensation Charley Hull—often spotted on the course in a cloud of smoke, cigarette dangling from her lips—would not be permitted to light up at Le Golf National due to Olympic regulations. Asked if she believed the strict smoking policy would affect her athletic performance, she said, “I think it will, because it relaxes me a little bit.”
Unfortunately, it appears she was right.
Hull shot a disastrous nine-over 81 during her first round on Thursday, sitting in 58th out of 60 players at the time of writing. It was a brutal performance from the World No. 11, and judging from the galleries at Le Golf National, not an altogether fair one. While Hull wasn’t allowed to fire up a heater during her opening round, fans around the course were spotted smoking wherever they liked, despite the Olympic smoking policy, which limits tobacco use to designated smoking areas only. The following photos were taken by Golf Digest Senior Equipment Editor Mike Stachura at Le Golf National on Thursday morning.
Stachura said it wasn’t quite like hanging out with Jean-Paul Sartre at Les Deux Magots back in the day (no, he's not actually that old), but he did see more than a dozen fans openly smoking on the course in the matter of a few hours. Perhaps Hull noticed them too.
Obviously, there’s an uncomfortable element of hypocrisy to all of this. Sure, Olympic athletes are expected to be role models and are held to extremely high standards, especially when it comes to the substances they put in their bodies. And yes, it is much easier to police 60 players than thousands of fans. But if Olympic organizers prohibit golfers from smoking while allowing fans to puff away on the tee box, that’s going to raise a few eyebrows and potentially impact players' performances as well. We doubt Hull will lose much sleep over it—she has bigger things to worry about on Friday—but to us this feels like a cut-and-dry case of “rules for thee, not for me.” Does anyone know how to say that in French?
