Rain ending early. Remaining cloudy. Low around 65F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%..
Rain ending early. Remaining cloudy. Low around 65F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%.
Lexi Thompson hits her second shot on the 12th hole during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Women's Open Presented by ProMedica at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. on Thursday, June 2, 2022. (Darren Carroll/USGA)
Lexi Thompson hits her tee shot on the 15th hole during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Women's Open Presented by ProMedica at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. on Thursday, June 2, 2022. (Darren Carroll/USGA)
Lexi Thompson hits her tee shot on the 15th hole during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Women's Open Presented by ProMedica at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. on Thursday, June 2, 2022. (Darren Carroll/USGA)
Lexi Thompson hits her second shot on the 12th hole during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Women's Open Presented by ProMedica at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. on Thursday, June 2, 2022. (Darren Carroll/USGA)
The memories are admittedly scant from 15 years ago, but they still draw a smile to Lexi Thompson’s face.
That she practiced her autograph style on the trip up from her home in Coral Springs, Fla.; that prying media minds wondered about her cats, Angel and Smelly, and her favorite TV program, a child’s sitcom called The Suite Life of Zack and Cody; that she bogeyed her very first hole, the easy par-five 10th; and that the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open Golf Championship was pockmarked by rain interruptions the first two days.
“Literally, I remember the 10th hole tee shot, and that’s it,” she says. “We had to play in the rain every day. Beyond that, I have no memories of the golf course.”
But one takeaway from playing the Women’s Open at the age of 12 years and four months — at the time, the youngest qualifier ever to the women’s national championship — remains crystal clear.
“To tee it up here when I was 12 is the reason I am where I am today,” she says. “It’s when I realized this is what I wanted to do.”
This, of course, is playing the LPGA Tour and becoming one of the top players in the ladies’ professional ranks. She shot rounds of 76-82 fifteen years ago and missed the cut, but today Thompson is now 27 years old, has won 11 LPGA events and more than $12 million in prize money. She’s matured from that kid in a ponytail and polka-dot skirt to an athletic machine who fires through the golf ball with such power her left foot leaves the ground and every follow-through is accented by body English in hopes of pulling the ball left or right.
“Lexi is probably one of the greatest athletes I’ve ever worked with,” says her fitness coach, Kolby Tullier. “We talk about wanting to get one percent better every day. She wants to get five percent better every day.”
Lexi Thompson hits her tee shot on the 15th hole during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Women's Open Presented by ProMedica at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. on Thursday, June 2, 2022. (Darren Carroll/USGA)
“Oh, that's just a girl wanting to keep up with her brothers,” father Scott says of his daughter’s speedy move-through-impact that resulted in a 278-yard driving average on the 2021 LPGA Tour.
Thursday morning at Pine Needles, Thompson teed off with Jennifer Kupcho and J.Y. Ko in the first round of the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open.
She was a curiosity in 2007.
She is a force in 2022.
Starting on the ninth hole, Thompson made six pars, then birdied the par-five 15th. On the par-five first hole, her 11th of the round, she reached the green with a 3-wood and 2-iron and made a 20-foot putt. She closed out a 3-under 68 with a birdie on the eighth hole, her final one of the day. Her only snafu was three-putting the fifth for a bogey.
“Overall it was a very solid day, I just tried to stay in the moment and be committed to my routine,” Thompson said. “In the U.S. Open, sometimes you just have to aim away from pins, take your pars and move on. It’s all about patience.”
Thompson started taking golf swings from a high chair as a toddler and by age seven was following brothers Nicholas and Curtis around the golf course in Coral Springs. Both Nicholas and Curtis have played professional golf, and Curtis caddied for Lexi in 2018 when he had lost his Korn Ferry Tour card; he was on the bag when she won the CME Group Tour Championship.
“Lexi makes the game look easy,” says Curtis, who’s collected more than $320,000 this year on the PGA Tour. “She plays shot by shot. After watching her move around that golf course, I thought, ‘If I can break it down, play each shot the same way instead of making it so complicated, I can play again.’”
Lexi Thompson hits her tee shot on the 15th hole during the first round at the 2022 U.S. Women's Open Presented by ProMedica at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. on Thursday, June 2, 2022. (Darren Carroll/USGA)
Thompson smiles with the gallery, is quick to make eye contact when signing autographs and exudes energy every step of the round. She knows young girls are looking up to her, just as she did toward Annika Sorentam 15 years ago.
But underneath are some sour memories of recent Opens. She bogeyed 11 and 13 in the final round at the Country Club of Charleston in 2019 to finish two shots behind winner
Jeong-eun Lee. And she was five shots in front on the back nine on Sunday last year at The Olympic Club, but a double and three bogeys opened a swath for Yuko Saso.
“I know my game’s been in a good spot,” she says. “As far as last year, it’s over. I took it, I learned from it and I moved on.”
That attitude is embodied in some ink etched on the inside of her right wrist. The tattoo features an arrow through the word “Faith.”
“The arrow is just to keep me going forward,” Thompson says. “God will have me on the right path.”
She added as well from a recent Instagram post: “Accept what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be.”
Missed cut in 2007. Leaderboard in 2022. Indeed, what will be, will be.
Lee Pace has written about the Pinehurst-area golf scene for more than 30 years, including authoring “Sandhills Classics – The Stories of Mid Pines & Pine Needles.” Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @LeePaceTweet.
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