This will blow your mind.
At 23 years young, Lexi Thompson is playing in her 12th consecutive U.S. Women’s Open this week, dating back to 2007 when she was known as Alexis.
This might also be surprising.
She hasn’t won the big one yet.
If you jot down a list of the top current players without a U.S. Women's Open title, Thompson is likely at the very tip-top of the list.
The results have been mixed. Her best finish was a T7 at Pinehurst in 2014 and she has four top 20 results in 11 tries.
If you take away the two missed cuts in 2007 and 2008, when she was just 12 and 13-years-old, she has made the cut in eight of the last nine years.
Thompson has obviously created higher than make-the-cut expectations with nine career wins and 54 top 10 finishes. She’s the No. 3 ranked player in the world and enters this Championship as the highest ranked American golfer.
Shoal Creek Country Club may play right into the strengths of the long hitter. Monday, Thompson played 18 holes during her practice round, a third of those holes were in the rain. She had just a few wedges into greens, which is uncommon considering she drives it nearly 274 yards on average. She's ranked fourth in driving distance on the LPGA.
“The course is playing very long,” said Thompson during a conference call with the media on Tuesday. “I had mostly mid-irons (into greens) and even had a few long-irons into par-3s. Being longer is definitely an advantage.”
If Lexi has mid-irons into greens, with the course already receiving the brunt of Subtropical Storm Alberto, most players will likely have hybrids and long irons with limited roll out due to saturated fairways.
Of all the tournaments, this is the one you’d have to think she wants most. She’s one of the most openly patriotic on the LPGA.
Remember her red, white and blue Solheim Cup Puma shoes? Or the skydive onto the first tee at the Kingsmill Championship in 2017 in partnership with the SEAL Legacy Foundation? Or the time she visited the U.S. Military Academy at West Point? Or when she went to her high school prom with a member of the U.S. military?
She’s seems destined to win a U.S. Women’s Open and this could be her week.
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