Tim Maitland
Put together, the names sound like one of those dusty law firms or quaint gentleman's outfitters that have been passed from generation to generation, but there's nothing old about the Stanford & Hull arriving in Singapore next week.
The names Angela Stanford and Katherine Hull belong together because the two of them are the most dramatically improved and, arguably, hottest players in the world-class field assembling for the HSBC Women's Champions.
They also belong together because the two players happen to be the best of friends.
The similarities are strong. Both suddenly started winning late last year. Both finished 2008 in sparkling form and both have proved it was no fluke by winning again at the start of this year.
And the fact that the two buddies have taken their games to an unprecedented high at exactly the same time is not a total coincidence.
"I think when your friends are doing good you want to do good. I think people feed off each other and I think friends feed off each other," says Stanford, a 31-year-old Texan, winner of the LPGA's season-opening SBS Open in Hawaii last month.
In the case of her relationship with the 27-year-old Queenslander, the spark is often their never-say-die attitude to sport.
"She's super competitive at everything," says Hull, who got her season off to a flying start by winning the ANZ Masters in her own back yard on the Gold Coast.
"There's just so much fight in her. Her determination is probably one of the biggest things to spot in her game," she adds admitting that the fight applies in every sport the play together and that even a game of Tiddlywinks could turn into a fight to the death.
"It probably would be if she knew how to play it!" she laughs.
Stanford agrees, but points out that the fact that they can release the competitive beast against each other is proof of how strong their bond is.
"She's such a good friend that we can get on the golf course or the tennis court and play and go at each other and when it's done it's done; then we're friends again. That's when you know when you have a good friend, when you can put that aside and get on with fighting and fighting and then when it's done it's done," she explains.
You would be forgiven thinking that the competitive streak extends to the way both players have simultaneously shot up the world rankings after the drastic epiphanies they went through late last year.
Angela, now rated sixth in the world, was 31st before she won the Bell Micro Classic in September, since then she's won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational and in Hawaii (Hull playing with her in the final group in the final round each time) and hasn't finished lower than sixth in her four other tournaments.
Katherine was 89th the week she won the CN Canadian Open in August, but is now 18th having the finished the LPGA season with seven top-10 finishes out of 11 events, with two other top-20s. In the Australasian events at the start of this year she's finished runner-up twice, grabbed her maiden professional win in her home country and finished sixth in the Australian Open.
The changes over the past 12 months have been dramatic for the two friends, but they've also been markedly different, despite the common thread of the role their religious faith has in their golf. Hull found she had not truly committed to winning, while Stanford discovered she wanted to win too much.
"I wanted to win but not to the point that I was working my butt off to win," Hull confesses.
I wasn't doing anything about it. There wasn't a burning desire to win. I wasn't doing anything that a professional should have been doing. I still needed a good kick up the backside a year ago."
"I think I'd pressed so hard to win and I wanted the results and I wanted everything that came with winning and I wanted to be the top American and I wanted all that, but I was upset all the time," Stanford recalls.
"I just got to the point where I became content with whatever God has in store with me, I'm OK with. That moment on, it was just "relax, enjoy the game and enjoy the abilities he gave me", instead of "why don't I have this? And why am I not here?" I fell in love with playing the game again.
"It's kind of the chicken or the egg. Are you happy because you win, or are you happy before you win and that's why you win? For me I started having so much fun playing the game and hitting the golf ball, getting so wrapped up in "okay, what am I going to do with the golf ball this time?" I was so happy playing the game that the results started happening."
For Hull happiness came through knowing that she was finally making the kind of commitment that would rekindle the kind of results she had had all through a dominant amateur and college career; results that had been missing during her five years on tour as, in her own words, she settled for mediocrity. Right now, she's inspired by a quote from the legendary heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali: "The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights."
Hull has taken on board a comment Annika Sorenstam made to her in Singapore last year and is dedicated herself to "pushing herself" in every thing she does before she steps inside the ropes.
"There's a really fine line between pushing and forcing. I think at this point I'm at the pushing stage; I'm not at the forcing stage. It's challenging myself to do extra work in the gym and to do extra practice, to get better at time management and to not take the easy way to do things. It's raising the quality of what I do. It's not expecting to win this week or that week or a Major. To me they're outcome related, whereas I'm trying to push myself in the process-related areas."
So Stanford & Hull will arrive in Singapore as two names to place in the same company as Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Suzann Pettersen and the young Asian Tigers like Yani Tseng and Jiyai Shin as potential challengers for the coveted HSBC Women's Champions.
Both are keeping their fingers crossed that their hot streaks stay hot.
"I'd like to prolong it as looooooong as possible," says Stanford, laughing as she stretches her Texan drawl to the length of a stretch limo.
"…but I understand this game. Somebody like Katherine, somebody like me, we've seen so many low moments that it really keeps you humble. It could all go away. In this game it can change at the drop of a dime. We've seen the other side of it. It's not that you're scared of it, but you're aware of it. You don't get up there and have streaks like this and think all of a sudden you're invincible."
And right on cue Katherine walked off the 18th tee at the Honda LPGA Thailand laughing at herself having just taken a 10, her highest score on a hole as a professional. "That's golf!"
Put together, the names sound like one of those dusty law firms or quaint gentleman's outfitters that have been passed from generation to generation, but there's nothing old about the Stanford & Hull arriving in Singapore next week.
The names Angela Stanford and Katherine Hull belong together because the two of them are the most dramatically improved and, arguably, hottest players in the world-class field assembling for the HSBC Women's Champions.
They also belong together because the two players happen to be the best of friends.
The similarities are strong. Both suddenly started winning late last year. Both finished 2008 in sparkling form and both have proved it was no fluke by winning again at the start of this year.
And the fact that the two buddies have taken their games to an unprecedented high at exactly the same time is not a total coincidence.
"I think when your friends are doing good you want to do good. I think people feed off each other and I think friends feed off each other," says Stanford, a 31-year-old Texan, winner of the LPGA's season-opening SBS Open in Hawaii last month.
In the case of her relationship with the 27-year-old Queenslander, the spark is often their never-say-die attitude to sport.
"She's super competitive at everything," says Hull, who got her season off to a flying start by winning the ANZ Masters in her own back yard on the Gold Coast.
"There's just so much fight in her. Her determination is probably one of the biggest things to spot in her game," she adds admitting that the fight applies in every sport the play together and that even a game of Tiddlywinks could turn into a fight to the death.
"It probably would be if she knew how to play it!" she laughs.
Stanford agrees, but points out that the fact that they can release the competitive beast against each other is proof of how strong their bond is.
"She's such a good friend that we can get on the golf course or the tennis court and play and go at each other and when it's done it's done; then we're friends again. That's when you know when you have a good friend, when you can put that aside and get on with fighting and fighting and then when it's done it's done," she explains.
You would be forgiven thinking that the competitive streak extends to the way both players have simultaneously shot up the world rankings after the drastic epiphanies they went through late last year.
Angela, now rated sixth in the world, was 31st before she won the Bell Micro Classic in September, since then she's won the Lorena Ochoa Invitational and in Hawaii (Hull playing with her in the final group in the final round each time) and hasn't finished lower than sixth in her four other tournaments.
Katherine was 89th the week she won the CN Canadian Open in August, but is now 18th having the finished the LPGA season with seven top-10 finishes out of 11 events, with two other top-20s. In the Australasian events at the start of this year she's finished runner-up twice, grabbed her maiden professional win in her home country and finished sixth in the Australian Open.
The changes over the past 12 months have been dramatic for the two friends, but they've also been markedly different, despite the common thread of the role their religious faith has in their golf. Hull found she had not truly committed to winning, while Stanford discovered she wanted to win too much.
"I wanted to win but not to the point that I was working my butt off to win," Hull confesses.
I wasn't doing anything about it. There wasn't a burning desire to win. I wasn't doing anything that a professional should have been doing. I still needed a good kick up the backside a year ago."
"I think I'd pressed so hard to win and I wanted the results and I wanted everything that came with winning and I wanted to be the top American and I wanted all that, but I was upset all the time," Stanford recalls.
"I just got to the point where I became content with whatever God has in store with me, I'm OK with. That moment on, it was just "relax, enjoy the game and enjoy the abilities he gave me", instead of "why don't I have this? And why am I not here?" I fell in love with playing the game again.
"It's kind of the chicken or the egg. Are you happy because you win, or are you happy before you win and that's why you win? For me I started having so much fun playing the game and hitting the golf ball, getting so wrapped up in "okay, what am I going to do with the golf ball this time?" I was so happy playing the game that the results started happening."
For Hull happiness came through knowing that she was finally making the kind of commitment that would rekindle the kind of results she had had all through a dominant amateur and college career; results that had been missing during her five years on tour as, in her own words, she settled for mediocrity. Right now, she's inspired by a quote from the legendary heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali: "The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights."
Hull has taken on board a comment Annika Sorenstam made to her in Singapore last year and is dedicated herself to "pushing herself" in every thing she does before she steps inside the ropes.
"There's a really fine line between pushing and forcing. I think at this point I'm at the pushing stage; I'm not at the forcing stage. It's challenging myself to do extra work in the gym and to do extra practice, to get better at time management and to not take the easy way to do things. It's raising the quality of what I do. It's not expecting to win this week or that week or a Major. To me they're outcome related, whereas I'm trying to push myself in the process-related areas."
So Stanford & Hull will arrive in Singapore as two names to place in the same company as Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Suzann Pettersen and the young Asian Tigers like Yani Tseng and Jiyai Shin as potential challengers for the coveted HSBC Women's Champions.
Both are keeping their fingers crossed that their hot streaks stay hot.
"I'd like to prolong it as looooooong as possible," says Stanford, laughing as she stretches her Texan drawl to the length of a stretch limo.
"…but I understand this game. Somebody like Katherine, somebody like me, we've seen so many low moments that it really keeps you humble. It could all go away. In this game it can change at the drop of a dime. We've seen the other side of it. It's not that you're scared of it, but you're aware of it. You don't get up there and have streaks like this and think all of a sudden you're invincible."
And right on cue Katherine walked off the 18th tee at the Honda LPGA Thailand laughing at herself having just taken a 10, her highest score on a hole as a professional. "That's golf!"
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