Congratulations to Lexi Thompson as she signs another new endorsement deal

Lexi Thompson of the United States walks onto the first green during the final round of the LPGA Drive On Championship at Bradenton Country Club
Lexi Thompson at the LPGA Drive On Championship last week.

Late last summer, Brett Falkoff, a golf agent with the sports and marketing agency GSE Worldwide, learned by way of colleagues that Dick’s Sporting Goods, which owns and is the exclusive seller of Maxfli golf balls, was looking to increase Maxfli’s exposure by partnering with a PGA Tour player.

The timing wasn’t right for any of the male players on GSE’s roster, but, Falkoff was asked, might 11-time LPGA winner Lexi Thompson, who Falkoff has represented since 2020 and whose ball deal with Bridgestone was set to expire at year’s end, be interested in exploring an agreement with Dick’s?

“I said, ‘Absolutely not,’” Falkoff told GOLF.com in a phone interview Monday.

Falkoff knew of Maxfli’s rich legacy of Tour pros playing its balls — the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman and Fred Couples all have endorsed the brand — but in more recent times Maxfli has had little to no presence in the game’s elite ranks. At first blush, Falkoff felt the prospect of Thompson gaming Maxflis was a non-starter.

Still, as he and his client scoped out options for a new ball partner for 2024 and beyond, they agreed to test Maxfli’s Tour Series model as part of the discovery process.

Then they saw the results.

We were all in shock,” Falkoff said. “The golf ball was better than anything else she tested. It became a nice match, and we were able to work out a nice agreement.” That one-year arrangement will include Thompson playing the ball for the 2024 season and also wearing a Maxlfi logo on the right side of her visor; she also will provide feedback to Maxfli as it develops its 2025 models.

Falkoff knows how it might look: an established and highly marketable star signing with a relatively low-profile brand. “People look at a deal like this and say, ‘Oh, it must have been a money grab.’ [But] if you really looked into it, this late in her career, why would she do something that is just a money grab? At the end of the day, she’s just looking to play something that performs the best for her.”