Lexi Thompson doesn't make cut at Shriners Children's Open but many in the field rooting for her
LAS VEGAS — The Englishman Matt Wallace emerged from scoring on Friday and asked his caddie where Lexi Thompson stood on the leaderboard. The defending champion Tom Kim bounded out of the scoring trailer shortly thereafter and reported that Thompson was in trouble on the fifth hole.
With five birdies in the first 11 holes of her second round of the Shriners Children’s Open, Thompson, an 11-time LPGA Tour winner from Delray Beach, had vaulted into a tie for 39th in the field of 129, sending a charge throughout the TPC Summerlin grounds. Her quest to become the first woman in the modern era, and the second woman after Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945, to make a 36-hole cut in a PGA Tour event, turned several of her fellow competitors into fans.
Trevor Werbylo, who played the first two rounds alongside Thompson, said he was rooting for her to make another birdie or two down the stretch. Werbylo added that he fed off the energy of the sizable gallery that was cheering on Thompson to play himself into contention at 8-under, four strokes behind the early halfway leader, Cameron Champ.
Champ and Lanto Griffin were the co-leaders at 12-under after two rounds. Thompson finished with a two-under 69 and a 36-hole total of even par. The cut ended up at 3-under.
“Very proud,” Thompson said. “I played really well today.”
She added, “As the day went on, I tried to stay committed to my targets out there and to my swing thoughts and just enjoyed the whole experience.”
Stewart Cink, a one-time major winner, was in the Colonial Invitation field in 2003 when Annika Sorenstam competed against the men, and he played in the same late-early wave as Thompson this week. Cink, who finished 1-under, described what Thompson was doing as doubly impressive because of the firmness of the greens, which, because she was using longer irons for her approaches, made it harder for her to avoid her shots running out. Indeed, two of her three second-round bogeys, on her first hole, the 10th, and her second-to-last hole, the eighth, came when she hit her target but her ball failed to stay on the green.
Thompson had to finish the final two holes of her first round Friday morning. She read the line right on her 21-foot par putt on No. 17 but came up inches short. The wave of momentum that Thompson, 28, rode in the second round she created with a tough up-and-down par save from the fringe of the green on 18 to salvage a 2-over 73.
“I just really tried to stay focused on my game and focused on my swing thoughts, picking small targets and staying 100 percent committed, and whatever happens, happens,” Thompson said.
Luke List, 'girl dad,' was rooting for Lexi
As a “girl dad,” Luke List had a rooting interest in Thompson. “Having a daughter, I really want her to pursue the game,” said List, who won last week’s PGA Tour event in Mississippi and is in contention here. “She doesn’t have to be the next Lexi Thompson. I just want her to learn the game.”
Kim, who was right about Thompson being in trouble on the fifth hole — she hit her tee shot on the par-3 out of bounds, the only conspicuously off-target shot she hit all week, on her way to a bogey — said that if he was a fan, he’d be following Thompson on the course.
“The competition on the PGA Tour is very, very hard,” Kim said. “If someone the caliber of Lexi made the cut, it would inspire the next generation of kids to play golf.”
The respect shown to Thompson by so many of her male peers is significant. The women’s game lacks the exposure that the men take for granted. Not enough people, even inside the sport, are aware of the high quality of play on the LPGA Tour. Thompson’s performance — even if her inclusion as an unrestricted sponsor exemption was “kind of a gimmick,” as one of the players in the field, Peter Malnati, described it — showed everybody that she can compete with the best.
As with golf, professional basketball was once dominated by men, too. Sports fans in this city have seen what is possible when women athletes are given opportunities to learn and grow alongside the best men and be supported by them. The Las Vegas Aces are in the WNBA Finals for the second consecutive year and, after two victories over the New York Liberty in front of sellout home crowds, are one win shy of a second straight title.
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Guiding the Aces is Becky Hammon, who became the first woman in a full-time paid NBA assistant coaching position when she was hired by the San Antonio Spurs in 2014. The Aces’ star forward, A’ja Wilson, counts the Lakers' superstar LeBron James among her fans and the franchise counts the retired seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady among its minority owners.
Oh, and Malnati? He finished six strokes behind Thompson.
Shriners Children's Open
Through Sunday
TPC Summerlin, Las Vegas
TV: 5 p.m., GOLF
Defending champ: Tom Kim
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lexi Thompson near cutline after second round at Shriners Children's Open
