On Tuesday at the U.S. Women’s Open at the Lancaster Country Club, Lexi Thompson announced that she was retiring from the LPGA Tour at the end of the season from full-time competition. In her 18th consecutive start in the championship, the 29-year-old Thompson is exiting just as Rose Zhang settles into her first full year as a professional. Thompson turned pro at 15 years old and won her first LPGA event just a year later, so she never amassed much of a resume in amateur golf. But Zhang racked up amateur trophies, including a U.S. Women’s Amateur, an NCAA individual title at Stanford and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur while spending a record 141 weeks as the top-ranked female amateur in the world.
Last June in her first event as professional, the Mizuho Americas Open, Zhang beat Jennifer Kupcho in a playoff to become the first woman to win her pro debut since 1951. Earlier this month, Zhang added a second win at the Cognizant Founders Cup. The women’s game is hurting for American superstars beyond Nelly Korda, who has won six of her last seven tournaments, and is the overwhelming favorite this week to earn her third major championship.
Yet the 21-year-old Zhang is as talented as anyone to challenge Korda for years to come for the top of the women’s game. But let’s give her some time to get used to professional golf before we label her as the next No. 1 player in the world and a future Hall of Famer. The teenage success of Thompson, Michelle Wie and Lydia Ko and so many other young women has led us to forget the speed at which things come at young players when they are suddenly thrust into the limelight. Zhang was a few years older than these women when she turned pro, but she’s still very inexperienced in the business of professional sports. Coming off of last year’s success, where she had a victory and four other top 10s in 14 starts, the Irvine, Calif., native has momentum, but she will also likely endure the growing pains that come with life at the highest levels of professional sports. Becoming a great tour player is as much about assembling everything from the right equipment to the right caddie to right accountant to the right agent, as it is about playing tournament golf.
