Lexi Thompson, an 11-time winner on the LPGA Tour, will achieve a career first — and go where few female players have gone before — when she competes in the Shriners Children's Open next week in Las Vegas.
Thompson will be the seventh woman to play a PGA Tour event. Babe Didrickson Zaharias, who played in the 1945 Los Angeles Open, was the first, and remains the only woman to make the cut in a men's event. The most recent was Brittany Lincicome, who played in the 2018 Barbasol Championship and shot 78-71 in the first two rounds. Michelle Wie West played in eight PGA Tour events during her career. Annika Sorenstam, Shirley Spork and Suzy Whaley have also played in Tour events.
While Thompson's on-course performance this year hasn't been up to her usual standards, she recently went 3-1 for Team USA in a losing effort at the Solheim Cup, and followed that with a T8 at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. Thompson played in the U.S. Women's Open at age 12; turned pro at 15; and became, at the time, the youngest winner of an LPGA event when she won the Navistar LPGA Classic at 16. She's won one major, the Chevron Championship in 2014, and finished T2 or better at three of the four others. She's played in several unofficial PGA Tour/LPGA events. Her brothers Curtis and Nicholas have played on the PGA and Korn Ferry tours.
"I'm hopeful that my ability to play with the men next week at the Shriners Children's Open sends a great message to the young women that you can chase your dream regardless of how hard it is," Thompson said in a statement."I'm grateful to Shriners Children's for this opportunity to spend the week alongside these inspirational kids.
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