Lexi Thompson joins elite group of women who’ve made PGA TOUR starts

Lexi Thompson joins elite group of women who’ve made PGA TOUR starts
LPGA star set to become just seventh woman to tee it up in TOUR event

When Annika Sorenstam teed it up at the Bank of America Colonial in 2003 in a tournament now known as the Charles Schwab Challenge, it was widely reported that Sorenstam was the first female to play in a PGA TOUR event since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1946.

Shirley Spork then politely raised her hand, cleared her throat and spoke.

Spork, a founding member of the LPGA, who died in 2022 at age 94, noted that she played in the PGA TOUR’s 1952 Northern California-Reno Open, earning a sponsor exemption and shooting symmetrical rounds of 77-80-77-80 at Washoe Golf Course, a tournament that had no cut. Spork finished 105th, well back of winner Dutch Harrison.

In 1945, Didrikson Zaharias again played in the Los Angeles Open, this time earning her way into the field by qualifying. She shot rounds of 76-81-79 to miss the 54-hole cut. A week later, though, she made history, becoming the first woman to play all 72 holes of a tournament when she fired scores of 77-72-75-80 to finish 33rd at the Phoenix Open. Earlier in the week, during the tournament’s pro-am, she set the Phoenix Country Club scoring record for women by posting a 4-under 68. A week after Phoenix, Didrikson Zaharias again made the cut, finishing 42nd at the Tucson Open. Her final PGA TOUR appearance came at the 1946 Los Angeles Open, 10 years before her untimely death of cancer at age 45.

After Spork’s lone PGA TOUR start, it took 51 years until Sorenstam became the third woman to play in an official tournament. Her celebrated appearance in 2003 at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, preceded Whaley’s appearance in Hartford two months later. Whaley, a club professional who briefly played on the LPGA and became the first woman president of the PGA of America in 2018, won the 2002 Connecticut PGA Section Championship to earn her spot in the Greater Hartford Open, now known as the Travelers Championship. Both Sorenstam and Whaley missed the cut.

The last player to compete in a PGA TOUR tournament was Lincicome, at the 2018 Barbasol Championship. Playing as a sponsor exemption, she missed the cut in Nicholasville, Kentucky, but not before shooting a second-round, 1-under 71, making her only the second woman – along with Wie West – to break par in a tournament. Wie West did it three different times.