Lydia Hall: Welsh golfer took second job during lockdown

Lydia Hall has been a professional golfer for 14 years and will this season play for record riches, but she still had to get a second job in 2020.

The Ladies European Tour (LET) resumes in May, with a record £15.2m in total prize money, a £3.9m increase on 2019.

Hall, the 2012 British Masters champion, needed to find other work as Covid-19 meant events were cancelled and sponsorship revenues dried up.

"I've been happily delivering parcels," she told BBC Radio Wales.

The 33-year old says "you've got to do what you've got to do" to earn a living and has had no issue taking on another job until the LET resumes with the South African Open in Cape Town from May 13-16.

"As so many people have lost their jobs or myself not being able to compete, you have to do what you have to do to keep paying the bills and keep the money coming in," said Hall.

"With a lack of sponsorship at the moment, I've got to keep the money coming in so when the schedule does start back up in May I can fund myself to get back out and compete on Tour.

"I've been happily delivering Amazon parcels to people around the Bridgend, Cardiff and Newport area with my mask on and my beanie hat.

"But you've got to do what you've got to do, so many people have been in similar situations where they've lost their job or been made redundant.

"So you've just got to adapt and do what you can, so I've been spreading myself doing all the workouts I need to do and keeping the golf swing ticking over by hitting the golf balls in the nets and popping to Southerndown Golf Club now and then."

Hall, who is from Bridgend, says lockdown restrictions have made training tough, even with elite athlete status.

"It's been really difficult over the last couple of months," she added.

"It's been very limited. As an elite athlete I've been able to just hit golf balls and not go on the golf course or anything at Southerndown. So I have a timetable there, shared with another golf professional just hitting balls two hours per day, Monday to Friday.

"I've got a net set up in the backyard but it's been really difficult at times. At the moment it's not really a priority, it's keeping us healthy and staying away from each other as much as we can.

"So it's been really difficult for so many elite athletes. Hopefully sometime soon we can get back to some sort of normality."

Hall had hoped to travel for warm weather training ahead of the new season, but that will not be possible due to travel restrictions. She is, however, hopeful the 2021 LET will resume with as little disruption as possible.

"I was hoping to go to Dubai to do some training, pretty much because everything is shut down on lockdown here but obviously the new restrictions and hotel quarantines wouldn't have been justifiable," she added.

"Our schedule has been announced, it's really looking positive. Fingers crossed coronavirus and government restrictions permitting, there's obviously a lot of uncertainty there, but we've got a record-breaking year with 27 events in 19 countries.

"We've got a 23-week run of tournaments from May until October... but everything is a little uncertain at the moment so we are going to have to wait and see."