Charley Hull rarely checks social media after sharing her pranks, but she doesn’t need to see the backlash to know how she feels about it. Her latest joke landed with a thud online, and her reaction was every bit as unbothered as the joke itself.

Hull’s scratch-card prank on longtime caddie Adam Woodward at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Lytham has drawn plenty of criticism online, but faced with it, she was blunt.

“No. And people that have complained about it, I would say loosen up,” Hull said at Thursday’s AIG Women’s Open presser, when asked if she had any regrets over the prank.

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She’d already made the same point moments earlier when asked if she’d do it all again.

“Yeah, a hundred percent. He thought it was funny after. He’s not uptight, like it’s a joke. If people don’t like it, they can lump it, do you know what I mean?” she said.

Pressed on whether the online criticism had gotten to her, Hull doubled down rather than walking any of it back.

“But yeah, I think people need to lighten up if they are taking that too seriously, because it was pretty funny,” she added.

Hull revealed the prank at a conference earlier this week. She picked up a fake £100,000 scratch card in Blackpool the night before and handed it to her caddie, Woodward, on their way to the players’ lounge. He scratched it, believed he had won, and reacted exactly how anyone would. He jumped around the lounge, smiling, giggling, and giving everybody a high five. He was so happy; he was ready to take one day’s leave to celebrate.

Much to the disappointment of everyone on the team, they eventually had to sit him down and tell him it was a fake card.

Hull and Woodward have shared a bag for over 10 years, and their partnership is heavily built on banter moments like these, so the prank was not a lone incident. Hull herself admitted she felt a pang of guilt after watching Woodward’s face fall once he learned the truth. But soon after, in a moment of disappointment, Woodward decided it was too funny to regret.

However, fans online have called it cruel and said Woodward deserved better after everything he’s put into her bag over the years. Others called it classic Charley, pointing to more than a decade that the pair has spent together as proof that the joke is landing exactly how it is meant to.

The scratch card wasn’t an isolated stunt, either. Just a week earlier at the Scottish Open, Woodward pulled a foghorn on Hull mid-swing, a prank that backfired when she birdied her way through the round anyway. Hull got her payback days later with a fish and chips ambush, before topping it off with the scratch card at Royal Lytham.

Charley Hull and Woodward have been open about how much they value each other. Woodward has caddied for Hull since 2015, but they briefly split for a year before reuniting. She has never been shy about what he means to her game, even saying that he is her best friend.

“If he couldn’t caddie anymore, I think I’d just be like, right, I’m retiring because I feel like no one else could caddie for me,” Hull said back in April.

The prank stems from Charley Hull’s candid relationship with money, a subject she raised in the same press conference. She said she loves playing majors for money, as it means more share for her and her caddie.

A Decade of Wins Worth Splitting

Woodward has been on the bag for her through every major moment of her career since 2015. That included her breakthrough at the 2016 CME Group Tour Championship, her six-year drought-breaking win at the 2022 Ascendant LPGA, where she took home a prize purse worth $255,000, and her 2024 Aramco Team Series Riyadh title on the Ladies European Tour, which paid out $69,190. He was also on the bag for her at the 2023 Solheim Cup.

As Golf Digest broke down, a good result for Charley Hull also means a bigger paycheck for Woodward. Caddies for players that finish top 10 typically earn 7% of the player’s prize money. Naturally, bigger prize money for Hull also means a bigger share for Woodward. For instance, at last year’s AIG Women’s Open, Hull finished as a runner-up. She won $289,741 for her finish, which put roughly $55,000 in Woodward’s pocket for the week.

Hull can say “loosen up” all she wants, but her golf this week will do the real talking. A missed cut hands the critics all the ammunition they need. A good finish, and nobody remembers the scratch card by Sunday, just another payday for the man carrying her bag.