It was, arguably, the most controversial decision on last year’s major international tours. In the first women’s Grand Slam event of 2017, Lexi Thompson was penalised four strokes on the Sunday after a viewer emailed the U.S. LPGA Tour to report a possible infraction in the previous day’s third round.
Officials checked out the video and ruled that she had replaced her ball inaccurately on the green. She was subsequently penalised two shots for the violation and two more for having signed for a lower score – even though she wasn’t aware of it at the time.
She was notified after the 12th hole of the final round when leading by two shots and, understandably miffed and bewildered, asked, “Is this a joke?” It wasn’t and, although she admirably recovered her composure to force a play-off, she eventually lost that to So Yeon Ryu.
This – together with other widely criticised rulings in recent years– prompted the game’s official arbiters to decide towards the end of last year that TV viewers will no long be able to report penalties on the world’s major tours.
Too late for Lexi, but at least she had previously won the 2014 Kraft Nabisco Championship for her first and to date only Grand Slam title, and she went on to finish 2017 as the lucratively-rewarded Race to the CME Globe winner, albeit suffering another dramatic setback – of her own doing on this occasion.
Much was on the line for several players when the 2017 LPGA Tour concluded in Florida. It all came down to the 72nd hole to determine the winner of this year’s CME Group Tour Championship. One of four players who held the overnight lead, Ariya Jutanugarn made birdie on four of her last six holes to win by one stroke and avoid a three-way play-off with Thompson and fellow American Jessica Korda.
The afternoon had seemed to belong to Thompson, who held a one-stroke lead through 71 holes, but she missed a putt of less than one metre on the 72nd hole for par, dropped back into a tie at the top with Korda and had to wait for Jutanugarn to complete her round. The Thai star then dashed Thompson’s hopes by draining an eight-metre putt for birdie to win by one stroke at 15-under.
As a consolation, Thompson took home the season-long Race to the CME Globe and its $1 million dollar prize, and also sealed the 2017 Vare Trophy by finishing the season with the lowest scoring average on tour at 69.114.
For the first time in the history of the LPGA Tour, there were two Rolex Players of the Year, Sung Hyun Park and So Yeon Ryu finishing the season tied; while Park also made history by becoming the first player since Nancy Lopez in 1978 to win both Rookie and Player of the Year honours in a single season. In addition, she finished 2017 atop the money list with $2,335,883.
Strong Family Golfing Origins
Born in Coral Springs (Florida) on 10 February 1995, Lexi Thompson gained a passion for golf from an early age. Older brother Curtis was a successful junior golfer and currently plays on the Web.com Tour and another, Nicholas (12 years her senior), is a U.S. PGA Tour member who won on the 2007 Nationwide Tour (now the Web.com).
At 12 years, four months and one day Lexi became the youngest qualifier in U.S. Women’s Open history (a record that in 2014 was broken by 11-year-old Lucy Li). In June 2010 she announced she was turning pro, and later that year the LPGA Tour waived its 18-year minimum age requirement for Tour membership to allow her to enter the 2011 Qualifying School.
In 2011 she won the Navistar LPGA Classic to become the youngest LPGA winner at 16 years, seven months and eight days (Lydia Ko broke that record the following year), and three months later also set a new record as the youngest champion of a Ladies European Tour tournament (Dubai Ladies Masters).
In all, she has won nine times on the LPGA Tour, including that single major in 2014, two victories in each of 2013, 2015 and 2017, and one in 2016 (as well as 2011 and 2014).
Multinational Flavour to World Rankings
When Lexi begins a new season at the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic on 25 January she will face the daunting challenge of ending the Asian players’ current domination of the women’s game, as reflected in the Rolex World Rankings.
The rankings have been headed by a diverse cross-section of women since their launch in 2006. In all, 12 different players representing nine countries – and ranging from teenager Lydia Ko to tour veteran Annika Sorenstam – have reached number one over the past 11 years.
In November, South Korean Sung Hyun Park made history by overtaking compatriot So Yeon Ryu at the top of the rankings to become the fourth Korean to reach number one (after Ryu, Inbee Park and Jiyai Shin) and the fourth different number one in 2017 (following, in order, Ko, Ariya Jutanugarn and Ryu).
However, Park’s reign lasted only briefly. Just one week later Shanshan Feng won the Blue Bay to overtake her on the Rolex list. The win enabled Feng to become the first golfer – male or female – from China to ascend to the top of golf’s world rankings.
For the record, Annika Sorenstam (Sweden) was the first world number one back in 2006 followed (for varying periods) by Lorena Ochoa (Mexico), Jivai Shin (South Korea, Ai Miyazato (Japan), Cristie Kerr (United States), Yani Tseng (Taiwan), Stacy Lewis (United States), Inbee Park (South Korea), Lydia Ko (New Zealand), Ariya Jutanugarn (Thailand), So Yeon Ryu (South Korea), Sung Hyun Park (South Korea) and Shanshan Feng (China).
At the end of 2017, the top-10 were:
1 Shanshan Feng
2 Sung Hyun Park
3 So Yeon Ryu
4 Lexi Thompson
5 In Gee Chun
6 Ariya Jutanugarn
7 Anna Nordqvist
8 I.K. Kim
9 Lydia Ko
10 Cristie Kerr
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