How Charley Hull’s viral cigarette lit up the golf world: ‘It’s a little surreal’

England’s top golfer, a newly-minted cult hero after being snapped smoking at the US Open, has the whole-mood swagger of John Daly by way of Kate Moss – and the game to back it up

LIGHTING A FIRE: Charley Hull at the US Women's Open recently. Pic: Sarah Stier/Getty Images

TOBACCO has been having a pretty good week. First we had those images of Paul Mescal and Natalie Portman looking like a starry-eyed advertisement for divorce and May-December romance as they took a smoke break outside some bar in Islington. 

Then along came Charley Hull, the 28-year-old English golfer who set the internet ablaze when she signed autographs for a gaggle of adoring fans at last week’s US Women’s Open in Pennsylvania with a lit cigarette dangling from her lips. There were several admirers awaiting her signature (and one indisputably grown-ass man who slipped her his number), and she didn’t bother to stub out the ciggie as she moved from fan to fan.