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In face of controversial invite, Lexi Thompson playing for more than just a score

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1 year ago

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It happens every year at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas. PGA Tour players meet and interact with kids who are sometimes suffering grave or debilitating illnesses. This year, for the first time, the young girls among that group will see someone who most resembles them, and LPGA Tour player Lexi Thompson insists she’s focusing on that connection more than how she’ll play at TPC Summerlin as only the seventh woman to compete in a PGA Tour event.

“Yes, good golf is a successful week,” Thompson, 28, said on Tuesday in a press conference. But, she added, “If I can leave here inspiring others, and especially the kids, the Shriners kids, that’s what it’s all about and what this tournament is. There is more than just playing golf.”

Thompson, an 11-time winner on the LPGA, received the invite from the Shriners in late September and said on Tuesday that playing in a PGA Tour event “means the world to me.”

Predictably, she and the tournament organizers faced some backlash for taking a spot in the field from a male player who could use the opportunity to further his earnings in the fall events that are critical to players attempting to re-earn their PGA Tour cards for next season. Veteran Peter Malnati, a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, initially reacted by calling Thompson’s inclusion a “gimmick.” But he back peddled on those comments later, adding, “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know that having Lexi play is a gimmick, but I don’t think the tournaments are going to have to go to those kind of lengths to

drum up interest and get storylines that they can sell because I think these events are actually going to have a lot of meaning.”

Asked about her reaction to the comments on Tuesday, Thompson said, “No reaction. I knew some comments were going to happen with anything. Like I said, I’m out here playing of course with the men, but I want to leave a message just to the kids that I’m following my dreams and to go after what you want with a positive mindset and don’t let anybody’s comments or reaction get in the way of that.

“But it’s all good,” she added with a smile. “I mean, I expected it.”

The invite may be controversial, but its place in history is noteworthy. Six women have preceded Thompson in teeing it up against the men—the last being Brittany Lincicome on a sponsor’s invite in the 2018 Barbasol Championship. Lincicome missed the cut, though she shot 71 in the second round to join Michelle Wie West as the only women to break par in a PGA Tour event. Wie West holds the record of eight starts against the men, but she never reached the weekend. The only woman to make the cut is Babe Didrikson Zaharias, who pulled it off twice in 1945.

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