As children, many people dreamed about making the profitable basket within the championship sport, a Tremendous Bowl landing, a objective within the World Cup because the clock ran out, a troublesome putt to win a significant.

Lexi Thompson didn’t simply dream. She lived that dream, profitable her first LPGA Tour occasion at age 16 to place her firmly on professional golf’s radar.

Twelve years later, Thompson competed in her first-ever PGA TOUR occasion, becoming a member of six different feminine professionals to do the identical factor.

Thompson was given an exemption into the Shriners Kids’s Open. Patrick Linsey, Govt Director of the Shriners Kids’s Open, stated, “We’re wanting to have Lexi on the course and proceed to interrupt by limitations, simply as our greater than 1.5 million sufferers do daily.”

For the event, TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, performed to 7,255 yards with a par of 71. The typical yardage for an LPGA event is between 6,200 and 6,600 yards.

Thompson Has Distance

Most golf followers and college students of the sport would agree that distance is the apparent problem with a lady enjoying knowledgeable golf event with males.  LPGA Tour gamers get way more distance out of their pictures than an beginner girl participant—however is it sufficient?

Thompson hits her driver a mean of 275 yards and a 7-iron 165. Thompson ranks twelfth on the LPGA Tour for driving distance. As a comparability, Justin Thomas hits his 7-iron 185 yards and his driver 300.

I Am Right here

The slogan adopted for Thompson within the first Tour occasion to permit a lady to play on a sponsor’s exemption since 2018, was “I Am Right here.” The phrase was supposed to indicate she was ok to earn a spot within the occasion, breaking down the limitations girls golfers have had in place for a very long time.

Thompson repeatedly acknowledged she hopes this endeavor evokes individuals who assume their goals are unattainable. The T-shirt created in help of Thompson enjoying within the 

Shriners Kids’s Open reads:

I AM FIERCE.

I AM AN OLYMPIAN.

I AM INSPIRATIONAL.

I AM A MAJOR CHAMPION.

I AM POWERFUL.

I AM DETERMINED.

I AM STRONG.

I AM WOMAN.

Lexi Thompson Holds Up Below Stress

It’s one factor to get a sponsor’s exemption and one other to be the one feminine within the area with a sponsor’s exemption. If you happen to had any doubt about Thompson’s enjoying potential and her energy underneath stress, she definitely confirmed up.

Thursday began somewhat gradual with a double bogey on the seventh gap and a rating of 73. Thompson knew she had extra to indicate.  The second spherical was fairly a bit higher, and with back-to-back birdies after making the flip, it seemed like Thompson would possibly make the 36-hole lower. However two late bogeys left her with a event rating of even par, three pictures shy of the lower line.

Nonetheless, she was removed from final within the area. As a feminine golfer, I’m pleased with this efficiency and what it can do for ladies’s golf.

What Does This Imply For Girls’s Golf?

Girls’s golf has been rising considerably because the pandemic. Girls of all ages (particularly juniors) are taking on the sport, resulting in greater than 6.4 million girls golfers on the course in 2022 within the U.S.

Golfers like Thompson encourage younger ladies to interrupt down limitations and present what girls are able to on the golf course.

The space issue between women and men will at all times be important however everyone knows there’s extra to golf than distance (should you’ve ever missed a one-foot putt, you already know what I imply).

My Take On It

I began enjoying golf after I was seven years previous and went on to play some skilled golf however found the golf enterprise was a greater match for me.

Nonetheless, watching Thompson on the market with the boys brings me proper again to my junior golf days, standing on the placing inexperienced night time after night time because the solar was happening. After I was over that 10-foot putt, the one I dreamed about making to win the event, I definitely didn’t take into consideration the LPGA occasions.

I believed in regards to the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship.

Wouldn’t you?

With golfers like Lexi Thompson displaying the world what girls are able to, she is opening doorways for my daughter and future generations of golfers with those self same goals.

I can’t wait to see her (and different LPGA professionals) get to stay round certainly one of these occasions for the weekend. It’s coming.