PLAYER DIARIES: ALICE HEWSON’S BUSY BREAK

This week on our new player diary series, England’s Alice Hewson discusses her busy Christmas break, Solheim Cup goals, and recent engagement to fiancee Stephen.

I had a very busy off-season. I went straight from Spain to the US because my fiancee is American and we have a house over there as well as two cats! So I went there for two weeks where I didn’t play any golf… which is always nice.

After that I came back to the UK where we spent a couple of days sightseeing in London, doing all the touristy stuff. Then I came back up to Liverpool for Christmas where we had 18 people over, which is always exciting. It was our first Christmas in the new house, which was a big change from previously living near London. So it was a very busy Christmas!

My fiancee, Stephen also proposed. We were out on a walk around the Marine Lake in West Kirby. It was beautiful, really pretty with a pink sunset, Welsh mountains in the background, and then he got down on one knee!

We’ve kind of started planning the wedding. We’re thinking about September 2024, so we just need to wait for next year’s Ladies European Tour (LET) schedule to be announced before we can officially pick dates and really start planning anything. But there’s some thoughts already in the pipeline.

Into January, and I went back to Florida to do some warm weather training ahead of the season. I had a change of swing coach towards the back end of last season. I lost my way a little bit with my swing, I was struggling to see my old coach as much as I needed to, so I made a change which has made a really big difference to my game. I had a very productive off-season and did a lot of work over Christmas.

Me and my new coach are always in contact which has been really helpful. It’s been a huge factor in how well I’ve been playing. My caddie Benji [Brewer] and my coach are actually father and son, which makes things really handy! So having a solid team around me has been really helpful.

I’ve got lots of separate goals for 2023. I want to get back in the winners’ circle, move up the world rankings, and do everything I can to make the Solheim Cup team. It’s a little stretch, but I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.

I’m very happy with how the first three events have gone. I couldn’t have really asked for a better start to 2023. I think the most exciting thing is that there’s now so much to build on from the golf that I’ve already played. It’s really exciting.

Hewson…