Lexi Thompson recorded a piece of history at the Grant Thornton Invitational courtesy of the tournament's first-ever ace.
Admittedly, 2023 marks the inaugural running of the mixed-team event at Tiburon Golf Club and Saturday was only the second day of competition, but Thompson's stunning strike was completely worthy of such a moment.
LEXI WITH THE HOLE-IN-ONE!pic.twitter.com/GWRDDNgUo0December 9, 2023
During the first co-sanctioned PGA TOUR-LPGA Tour competition in over two decades, Thompson stood on the par-three 16th tee with a 7-iron in her hands and floated a beautiful-looking shot right towards the pin.
Her ball crunched into the ground inches away from the hole before taking a lovely bounce to its right and dropping directly in.
On a day where Foursomes was the designated form of play, Thompson's playing partner Rickie Fowler was not required to make a putt and simply enjoyed the job of congratulating the women's World No. 31 on her 11th career ace.
"Definitely up there, probably one of my highest because I've only had about four in competition with crowds, with a good amount of crowds, so there was a lot of people around that tee box," Thompson said after the round.
She continued: "It was nice to high-five everybody and hear all the cheers. I can't wait to watch the video of it later. Definitely a good feeling. I mean, hitting a golf shot or making a putt and just committing to it and seeing the shot at hand and really just pulling it off, it's always a great feeling."
Thompson's heroics pushed her and Fowler up the leaderboard and helped them recover from a slow start at Tiburon. Having made the turn at one-over for the day, the late hole-in-one added into a back-nine score of 31 (five-under) and put them in a tie for fourth, four shots behind leaders, Lydia Ko and Jason Day heading into Sunday's unique format.
The final day's action will feature something called modified four ball, where both players on each team tee off before switching balls for their second shots, and continuing with that ball until it is holed. The lower score between the teammates will count towards the team score.
The 16 teams of 32 players are competing for a share of a $4m purse, and the winning team will claim $1m shared equally between the two victorious players.
Thompson's strong run at the Grant Thornton Invitational arrived a couple of months after she made her PGA Tour debut at the Shriners Children's Open during the FedEx Cup Fall series.
The 11-time LPGA Tour winner narrowly missed the cut at TPC Summerlin and would have become the first female player to achieve the feat since 1945 if she had managed it.
Thompson will this week focus all of her attention on trying to upset the odds alongside Fowler and claim another championship trophy.
