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Former teen prodigy, main champion and all-round history-maker, Lexi Thompson has revealed 2024 can be her final 12 months as a full-time member of the LPGA Tour.
Thompson is an 11-time LPGA Tour winner — together with her lone main on the 2014 Chevron Championship, then often called the Kraft Nabisco Championship — and represented america in six Solheim Cups in addition to two Olympic Video games.
“Golf has been my life ever since I used to be 5 years outdated, tournaments after I was 7,” Thompson mentioned from Lancaster Nation Membership, web site of this week’s US Ladies’s Open.
“I have never actually recognized a lot of a life totally different, but it surely’s been an incredible one.
“This sport has taught me loads, and I’ve discovered a lot alongside the best way, constructed so many friendships and relationships. I am wanting ahead to what life has in retailer.”
Regardless of being simply 29 years outdated, Thompson will start her 18th US Ladies’s Open on Thursday.
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Thompson certified for the 2007 version of the match on the age of 12, then the youngest ever to perform the feat. She turned skilled at age 15 and at 16 grew to become the youngest participant to win an LPGA match by capturing the 2011 Navistar Traditional. Each information since have been damaged.
Thompson grew to become the seventh girl to compete on the boys’s PGA Tour when she participated within the 2023 Shriners Kids’s Open, lacking the lower by two strokes.
Thompson at the moment is 54th within the girls’s world rankings, however she has missed every of her previous three cuts as she has performed by a hand damage.
“I have never been taking part in the golf that I count on myself to, however my hand has been unbelievably higher,” Thompson mentioned, when requested if damage was at the very least a part of the rationale she determined to retire.
“I’ve really been in a position to go on the market and swing with out ache, which is all the time good. That is been a terrific feeling to have. I would not say that has any issue. In fact the outcomes have not been what I’ve wished. It is simply the place I am at in my life.”
Thompson did go away the door open to compete at choose occasions sooner or later.
“I am taking it day-to-day proper now,” she mentioned.
“I am not going to say sure or no on what number of occasions I will play — or if I do. I am simply going to take it day-to-day and see how I really feel, particularly going into subsequent 12 months. However I am very content material with this being my final full-time schedule 12 months.”
The primary purpose nonetheless remaining for Thompson this 12 months is to qualify for america Solheim Cup staff in September.
“[It is a] big honour simply to symbolize my nation and play alongside the staff there and my captain,” she mentioned.
World primary Nelly Korda commented on Thompson’s affect on the LPGA Tour.
“She’s had such an incredible profession,” Korda mentioned.
“I’ve gotten to be on the staff together with her a pair instances representing our nation. I feel she does an incredible job for the tour. She actually devoted her time to rising the sport.
“It is unhappy to see that she’s clearly leaving and never going to be out right here with us anymore, however she’s had an incredible profession, and I want her the perfect on this new chapter of her life.”
LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan additionally spoke to Thompson’s affect on and off the course.
“She embodies the spirit and dedication of our founders — all the time displaying up and interesting deliberately to assist additional the expansion and affect of the LPGA,” Marcoux Samaan mentioned.
“She is beloved by followers, constantly seen signing autographs and interacting with them irrespective of the end result that day.
“This dedication was exemplified final 12 months when she was honoured with our Founders Award, given to an LPGA member who finest exemplifies the spirit, beliefs, and values of the LPGA by her behaviour and deeds, as voted on by her friends.
“Lexi’s outstanding profession and the best way she has carried out herself each on and off the course have impressed numerous ladies around the globe to pursue their targets with ardour and perseverance.”
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Reuters
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