Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Thompson among headliners
LPGA star up against Champions Tour players
LPGA star Lexi Thompson learned long ago how to hold her own playing with boys.
Thompson came up in the game with two older brothers with professional futures and had no choice but to keep up. When she teed it up with girls her age, Thompson played a different game.
The 21-year-old from Coral Springs still does.
During this weekend’s Diamond Resorts Invitational, some of golf’s top senior golfers and Hall of Famers from the four major sports are sure to be impressed by Thompson.
But the 6-foot, 159-pound Thompson won’t be looking to flex her muscles. Well, maybe a little.
“I mean, am I not going to say I dislike it,” she said of outdriving men. “It’s fun. But it’s not like our goal in mind.”
Even so, Thompson’s prodigious length is the foundation of her game.
In 2016, Thompson averaged 277.4 yards off the tee to rank second on the LPGA Tour. She has combined her power with precision to become a seven-time winner, the world’s top-ranked American — at No. 5 — and a fan favorite.
Thompson was the only female competitor in the 24-player, 12-team field month’s Shark Shootout in Naples and often outplayed teammate and up-and-coming PGA Tour star Bryson Dechambeau. Thompson’s 5-iron from 217 yards on a par-5 set up a 7-foot eagle putt and ranked among the shot’s the week.
When she exited the green, a gallery member shouted, “Girl power!”
Just eight of the Champions Tour players in the field averaged more yards off the tee last season than Thompson.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s something we really think about,” she said. “Sometimes, the guys point it out to us we outdrove and they just laugh about it. We’re just trying to find the fairway and get the lowest score.”
Going low, or actually high, will be everyone’s goal this weekend during the 54-hole event, scheduled for Friday to Sunday at Tranquilo Golf Club at Four Seasons in Orlando. The tournament will use the Modified Stableford scoring format that awards points as opposed to strokes.
In a unique twist, Thompson and fellow LPGA major champions Brooke Henderson, Brittany Lang and Brittany Lincicome will compete with Champions Tour professionals for a $750,000 purse. Meanwhile, the rest of the field will chase $500,000 in prize money.
Thompson goes off the first tee of the 6,626-yard layoff at 11:12 a.m. Friday with defending champion Mardy Fish, a longtime professional tennis player, and former pitcher Mark Mulder, a two-time All-Star and the winner of the past two American Century Celebrity Championships in Lake Tahoe.
But Thompson said she is less focused on winning this week than on charity and camaraderie. The event will benefit Florida Hospital for Children.
“My focus is really it’s a charity event,” she said. “Playing in front of people, we want to make birdies and want to make it fun and exciting. To get paired up with celebrities, it’s definitely going to be a good time.”
Because of golf Thompson is living the dream.
Last August, she represented the United States during the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where she met, among others, Jamaican sprinting legend Usain Bolt.
“He’s a character,” she said. “To see what he’s accomplished and just the attitude he has is unbelievable.”
Thompson said the highlight, though, was donning the red, white and blue.
“It was a big deal for me,” he said. “There’s nothing like putting on your country’s colors and going out and playing.”
Thompson hopes to do it again in August, only this time in Des Moines, Iowa, at the 2017 Solheim Cup.
Once she wraps up this weekend, Thompson will turn her focus on the upcoming season. Making the Solheim Cup team and winning her second major championship are her top goals.
Thompson embraces her success and place in the game.
“I don’t really look at it as extra pressure or something,” she said.
“It’s what I love to do.”