SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France (AP) — Charley Hull of Britain might not be going viral at the Olympics. There's no smoking inside the ropes at Le Golf National.
Hull made quite the sensation this year at the U.S. Women's Open with a social media post of her signing autographs with a cigarette dangling between her lips.
“I do smoke on the course,” Hull said Tuesday. “It's a habit, but I won't do it this week. I don't think you're allowed.”
The Paris 2024 health and safety guidelines indicate that smoking is not allowed at any venues except in designated areas. That would not include inside the ropes for the 60-player field in the women's competition that starts Wednesday.
That was greeted by a shrug from Hull, a free-wheeling 28-year-old from England. But there was a small measure of concern. She was asked if not smoking — she says she lights up on the course when she's feeling stressed — will affect her.
“I think it will,” Hull said. “Because it relaxes me a little bit. But it is what it is.”
Hull is playing in her second Olympics. She finished two shots out of a chance at the bronze medal in the Tokyo Games. Hull played in her first Solheim Cup at age 17. She has five wins on the LPGA and Ladies European Tour and has been runner-up three times in the majors.
But that one moment at Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania made her more famous than nearly everything she has done on the golf course.
Hull said she was walking to the range, smoking a cigarette, and her hands were full when someone asked her for an autograph.
“I always like signing autographs,” she said at the Women's Open. “Had a cigarette in my mouth, signed it, and then it's gone viral.”
She hasn't checked reaction to that moment because Hull got off Instagram and other social media about four months ago.
Smoking and golf have a history — Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, even Jack Nicklaus until he saw a photo of him smoking in the early 1960s and never smoked again on the course. It's more rare these days on tour, though a few players — Hull included — still light up.
Just not this week.
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
FILE - Charley Hull, of England, watches her shot after hitting from the fourth tee during the final round of the Women's PGA Championship golf tournament at Sahalee Country Club, Sunday, June 23, 2024, in Sammamish, Wash. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Dominican President Luis Abinader has announced more than a dozen measures to crack down on migrants who have entered the Dominican Republic illegally as people in neighboring Haiti flee a surge in gang violence.
The measures that Abinader qualified as “painful but necessary” in a speech Sunday include charging patients for hospital services and sanctioning those who rent homes or commercial businesses to migrants who lack proper documentation.
“The rights of Dominicans will not be displaced. Our identity will not be diluted. Our generosity will not be exploited. Here, solidarity has limits,” Abinader said.
He said that starting on April 21, hospital staff will be required to ask patients for their identification, work permit and proof of residence.
If a patient is unable to present any of those documents, they will receive medical attention and then be deported immediately, Abinader said, adding that a migration agent will be stationed at every hospital to ensure compliance.
The government also will deploy an additional 1,500 soldiers to the border that the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, boosting the total number of personnel stationed there to 11,000, Abinader said.
He also announced he would speed up construction of a border wall to add another eight miles (13 kilometers) to the 34 miles (54 kilometers) already built.
“I recognize that many are concerned about the threat Haiti poses. Concerned about the irregular migration it causes. Concerned about the burden this places on our hospitals, our schools, the risks to our security, and the strain on our economy,” Abinader said.
So far, his administration has deported more than 180,000 suspected undocumented migrants since it announced in October that it would deport 10,000 of them a week. Human rights activists and dozens of those who have been deported have accused the government of abuse, including breaking into homes without a warrant to arrest people.
Abinader also announced that legislators would debate a new bill calling for stricter penalties against those who help migrants cross into the Dominican Republic illegally.
“The violence that is destroying Haiti will not cross over to the Dominican Republic,” Abinader said.
The president added he would try to have businesses hire only Dominican workers in certain sectors.
“For far too long, agriculture and construction have depended on illegal workers,” he said.
Abinader spoke a week after an ultranationalist movement organized a protest in a Dominican community where many Haitians live to demand that the government impose measures against illegal migration as it threatened to hold a national protest if its demands were not met.
Abinader’s announcement also comes as gangs in Haiti that control at least 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, continue to attack once-peaceful communities in a bid to control more territory.
He called on the international community to “do their duty,” noting that Haiti needs help and that the Dominican Republic “cannot and should not burden a crisis that is not theirs.”
Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed.
Supporters of the Antigua Orden Dominicana nationalist group take part in march against immigration at a Haitian settlement called "El Hoyo de Friusa" in Bavaro, Dominican Republic, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)
Supporters of the Antigua Orden Dominicana nationalist group take part in a march against immigration at a Haitian settlement called "El Hoyo de Friusa" in Bavaro, Dominican Republic, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)
Angelo Vasquez, center, the leader of the Antigua Orden Dominicana nationalist group speaks to supporters during a march against immigration at a Haitian settlement called "El Hoyo de Friusa" in Bavaro, Dominican Republic, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Ricardo Hernandez)
