Charley Hull Pledging $13,000 To Quit Smoking
Charley Hull has never fit neatly into golf’s polite little box. She plays fast, talks straight, trains more like a fighter than a golfer. And over the last year, she’s also become the most unexpectedly relatable rebel on the...
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Charley Hull has never fit neatly into golf’s polite little box. She plays fast, talks straight, trains more like a fighter than a golfer. And over the last year, she’s also become the most unexpectedly relatable rebel on the LPGA Tour, thanks to one very public habit: smoking cigarettes during tournaments.
Now Hull is trying to kick that habit, and she’s doing it in classic Charley fashion: with a high-stakes, very public wager worth about $13,000. Here’s what actually happened, why it went viral and what it says about Hull (and about modern golf fandom).
The Moment That Made Hull A Cult Hero
Hull’s cigarette-in-hand image exploded during the 2024 U.S. Women’s Open, when she was filmed smoking while signing autographs. The clip spread fast, and fans compared her to John Daly, another talented golfer with a famously unfiltered public persona.
Hull didn’t run from it. If anything, she leaned into the surprise popularity. She even joked about the attention in press settings, treating the whole thing with a shrug-and-grin vibe rather than embarrassment.
In a sport that sometimes feels over-media-trained, Hull came off as refreshingly human… One of the reasons she’s become so popular so quickly.
The Bet: What She Promised And What It’s Worth
On March 18, 2025, Hull posted an Instagram video from Sunningdale Golf Club in England. In it, she hands a pack of cigarettes to fellow English pro Ryan Evans and proposes a deal:
She won’t smoke for two months. If she smokes even one cigarette in that period, she owes Evans £10,000. £10,000 is roughly $13,000 USD, depending on exchange rates.Hull also makes it clear in the video that she doesn’t gain money from winning. The bet is pure deterrent. If she succeeds, she just gets… healthier.
Why The Internet Latched Onto It
The story has everything modern sports virality loves:
A bold, simple hook“LPGA star bets $13K she won’t smoke.” You hardly even need a second sentence.
Hull is known as one of the fittest players on tour, constantly posting gym sessions and intense training, which makes the smoking habit feel almost paradoxical. Fans can’t look away.
The Instagram video doesn’t feel PR-scripted. It feels like your friend making a dramatic, half-laughing life promise in real time.
Lots of people want to quit smoking. Seeing an elite athlete openly wrestle with it hits a nerve… And makes people feel less alone in their battle.
Hull’s Own Explanation: From Vaping To Cigarettes
Hull has talked publicly about how she ended up smoking on course in the first place. She started vaping during a stressful period, then switched to cigarettes partly because they were easier to control. You have to go outside to smoke, while vaping can become constant.
It’s not framed as “cool.” It’s framed as a messy, very human attempt to manage stress. Which, again, is why her fans recognize themselves in her.
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The Update: Early Signs She Was Sticking With It
A few weeks after announcing the wager, Hull posted that she had gone a full week without smoking, saying she didn’t miss it and had no cravings, though she mentioned a loss of appetite.
That doesn’t confirm the full two-month outcome, but it does confirm she started the challenge and was tracking it publicly.
Later in the summer of 2025, Hull told talkSPORT that she had not smoked since the bet and had been using nicotine patches. She also said cigarettes had become a coping mechanism after an ADHD diagnosis in 2023.
So as of that interview, Hull’s own reporting was that she’d followed through during the bet window. Evans’ loss!
Does Quitting Affect Performance? The Quiet Sub-Plot
Whenever an athlete changes something major mid-career, fans wonder what it will do to their game.
In Hull’s case, early 2025 results were strong: she opened the season with solid finishes and was ranked around the top 10 in the world at the time of the bet.
None of the coverage suggests any negative performance impact from quitting smoking. If anything, most commentary frames it as aligning her health with her already high fitness standards.
Still, that tension of “Will this help or hurt her play?” is part of what kept people following the story.
The Bigger Picture: What Hull Represents Right Now
Hull’s smoking saga (first viral, then wagered against) is bigger than cigarettes.
It highlights a shift happening in pro golf:
Fans are drawn to personality as much as precision. Hull is a world-class player, but the cigarette moment reached audiences who wouldn’t normally watch LPGA coverage.Athletes don’t have to be spotless to be loved. In fact, being imperfect can be the brand. Hull’s openness makes her feel real.
The LPGA’s cultural footprint is evolving. Players like Hull, Nelly Korda, Lexi Thompson, and others are expanding what “golf star” looks like in the social-media era: interesting, meme-able and deeply human.
Hull didn’t become viral because she smoked. She became viral because her whole vibe said, “Yeah, I’m me. Take it or leave it.” And now, the same internet that turned her cigarette into a meme is rooting for her to quit. That’s a pretty modern kind of sports relationship.
Final Thoughts
Charley Hull’s $13,000 smoking bet is funny, bold and very on-brand. But it’s also quietly meaningful. It shows an elite athlete making a public commitment to health in a way that feels honest rather than performative, which can be unusual.
And it shows how fandom works now: the moments that stick aren’t always the ones on the leaderboard or those monster drives. Sometimes they’re the ones that remind us these players are people first.
If Hull won the bet, she didn’t just lose a habit. She reinforced what her fans already love about her: guts, humor and a willingness to be real in a sport that hasn’t always made room for that.
