Notebook: Thompson’s Round Goes off the Rails at No. 8
Lexi Thompson played the 8th to 16th holes in 7 over par during Saturday's third round, leaving her five strokes out of the lead at the end of the day. (USGA/John Mummert)
By Greg Midland, USGA
VILLAGE OF PINEHURST, N.C. – Lexi Thompson was doing everything right through seven holes on Saturday’s third round. She sank a long birdie putt on No. 3, added another birdie on No. 5 and striped a drive on the par-4 seventh hole that finished 20 yards short of the green. She was within one stroke of leader Michelle Wie and looked like she might have a round to remember.
Instead, it was a round she’d like to forget.
On the eighth hole, a par 4 that ranks as the toughest through three rounds, Thompson pulled her approach shot from the fairway to a collection area left of the green, nearly 10 feet below the putting surface. She immediately realized the mistake – this is the type of treacherous place that makes players scribble “don’t go here” in their yardage books. Thompson went there, and she called what happened next “a bad mess.”
Thompson first tried a bump and run that didn’t reach the putting surface and rolled more than halfway back down the slope. Next she used her putter but was a bit too firm, and ended up just off the green on the opposite side. She settled herself and two-putted for a double-bogey 6. Unfortunately for Thompson, her fortunes didn’t improve from there.
On the par-3 ninth hole, which played 170 yards on Saturday, Thompson’s tee shot landed in the middle of the green but released and rolled over the back and down a hill.
“I actually hit a perfect shot on 9, it just went about 3 or 4 yards too far,” she lamented.
Her ball came to rest in short grass near the boundary of the area surrounding the television tower, which is classified as a temporary immovable obstruction. She took the opportunity to play instead from the designated drop zone, but when she dropped her ball, it settled in a sand-filled divot. Her first putt didn’t make it up the hill, and just like No. 8, the ball rolled back toward her. Her next attempt rolled 7 feet past the hole, and she missed the comeback putt for a second consecutive double bogey.
Though she recovered with a birdie on the par-5 10th hole, four more bogeys – on 11, 14, 15 and 16 – made it clear that this was not going to be her day. She did rally for a closing birdie on the par-18th, which helped ease the pain a bit.
“It gave me a little bit of confidence, that’s for sure,” she said. “Any time you see a putt go in on 18 and hear the fans cheer that loud for you, it definitely gives you a lot more confidence going into tomorrow. But it was a tough day.”
A tough day that started with one bad swing that she would dearly like to have back.
Lopez’s Winning Legacy
World Golf Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez participated in a Q&A in the USGA Member Clubhouse at the Pinehurst Resort & Country Club on Saturday, and when she was asked what she would like her legacy to be, the three-time major champion got predictably emotional.
“I hope that I brought a lot of people to golf and that they love it the way that I do,” said Lopez, 57. “And hopefully people will remember me as one of the best players who ever played the game, but also one of the nicest – because that was always my goal, to be good to my fans.”
Lopez was also popular among her fellow players, though perhaps there is one instance where she wishes she hadn’t been so nice. Fellow professional Alison Nicholas of England was struggling with her game, and on the verge of giving it up. Lopez cajoled her into sticking with it, much to Lopez’s dismay a couple of years later.
Nicholas went on to capture the 1997 U.S. Women’s Open at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Ore., for her only major championship, edging Lopez by one stroke and denying her one-time supporter a long-sought U.S. Women’s Open title. It was Lopez’s fourth runner-up finish in the championship, the most by any player who didn’t win, and her score that year (275) remains the lowest score ever shot by a non-winner in the Women’s Open.
“I shot four rounds in the 60s [the first-ever to do so] and didn’t win it,” said Lopez. “I walked away saying I played that golf course great. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Lopez won the New Mexico Women’s Amateur at age 12, then took the national stage with victories in the 1972 and 1974 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championships. Her professional career started with a remarkable flourish, as she won nine times in 1978, her rookie season on the LPGA Tour. She retired from full-time competition in 2002 after 48 victories, including three LPGA Championships. The U.S. Open heartache, which began with a tie for second as an amateur in 1975 and included nine top-10 finishes, was tough to talk about for a long time.
“I could not do a press conference without crying,” said Lopez of her final second-place finish in 1997. Conversely, Lopez’s favorite victory was not an individual triumph.
“My favorite win was when I was captain of the U.S. Solheim Cup Team,” she said of 2005, when the U.S. defeated Europe, 15½-12½. “To be the captain of a great team and beat the Europeans was really a feather in my cap. It was an accomplishment for me, trying to form a team out of individual players. It was like I was playing.”
The American players know going into the competition that they had an emotional leader in Lopez.
“I do tear up a lot,” admitted Lopez. “My heart carries a lot of things. On the day I was named captain, Meg Mallon said let’s keep track of how many times our captain cries.”
Mallon didn’t have to wait long.
“We went to Crooked Stick to play our first practice round,” Lopez recounted. “I was on the first tee with our first group and I started crying. They asked me why I was crying, and I said, it’s going to be over soon!”
Lacoste An Emblem of Career Amateurs
1967 U.S. Women’s Open champion Catherine Lacoste, of France, was on hand at Pinehurst No. 2 this weekend to sign copies of her new book, “Catherine Lacoste’s Slam.” On Friday, Lacoste, the only amateur to win the championship, had dinner with countrywoman Mathilda Cappeliez, 16, one of six amateurs to make the 36-hole cut.
“She’s sort of at the age where she has to make a decision, and that’s getting harder,” Lacoste said of Cappeliez, who is tied for 60th after a third-round 78. “She wants to go on with her studies, but in France it’s very hard to study and play in tournaments at the same time.”
In this day and age, the lure of formidable prize money and lucrative endorsement deals means top young players are often faced with the predicament of continuing to develop as amateurs or turning pro at an early age, where success is far from guaranteed. Lacoste, who had just turned 22 when she made history with her victory at Virginia Hot Springs Golf & Tennis Club, doesn’t recall having the uncertainty that one might face in 2014.
“In Europe there were no pro tours at the time, so I would have had to come over here [to the United States]. I was playing for the [French National Team], I was enjoying myself over there,” said Lacoste, who also noted that the financial incentives of playing professionally during that time were not what they are today. “If I had been a pro I would have won $5,000, and that doesn’t change my life. I also wanted to have a family a few years later. [Turning pro] was never really something I thought about.”
The daughter of tennis star René Lacoste, who won seven Grand Slam titles and later founded the Lacoste clothing brand, led by seven strokes with 17 holes left in the championship before holding on for a two-stroke victory over Susie Maxwell and Beth Stone. A career amateur, Lacoste went on to win the 1969 U.S. Women’s Amateur title.
Some things, such as the benefits of playing golf professionally, may evolve over time, but others stay the same. “I was able to say happy birthday to my father, it was his birthday that day,” said Lacoste of the first thing she did after sinking the winning putt in 1967. “He had come [to the U.S. Women’s Open] two years earlier, but this time I had asked him to let me go on my own. The ceremony may have taken place a few minutes later, but I was able to call him.”
USGA Champions on Parade
The final seven groupings in Sunday’s final round feature at least one USGA champion each. The final pair includes 2003 Women’s Amateur Public Links champion Michelle Wie, and five-time USGA champion Juli Inkster (three U.S. Women’s Amateurs and two U.S. Women’s Opens) is off next-to-last.
The third-to-last grouping features two USGA champions: 2012 Girls’ Junior winner Minjee Lee and 2012 Women’s Open champion Na Yeon Choi. So Yeon Ryu, who won the 2011 Women’s Open, is in the pairing just ahead of Lee and Choi, while two-time Women’s Open winner Karrie Webb is playing in front of Ryu.
Lexi Thompson, the 2008 Girls’ Junior winner, will be playing in the sixth-to-last group, just ahead of 2010 Women’s Open winner Paula Creamer and world No. 1 Stacy Lewis, who is still seeking her first USGA victory.
Greg Midland is the USGA’s director of editorial and multimedia content. Ron Driscoll and Scott Lipsky contributed to this report.
