Rare Photo of Young Lexi Thompson & Her Achivements After Retirement Reveal Makes Golf Community Curious

Lexi Thompson made headlines yet again; however, this time she left her fans devastated with her retirement announcement. The 29-year-old Thompson has won one major in her career but has several other accolades to her name. With 15 professional wins to her name, Thompson has acquired quite a bit of fame in the women’s golf industry. Now that she is retiring, an old photo has resurfaced on the internet, solidifying the fact that she was a young prodigy.

Jamie Kennedy, the Director of Digital Content at Golf Digest, shared a photo of a young Lexi Thompson on his X handle. In the photo, Thompson is seen in a corner full of trophies spread across the floor and cabinet tops. The number of trophies far exceeds at least three times the age of Thompson at the age when the photo might have been taken. The photo is captioned, “This photo of a young Lexi Thompson at home.”

In 2007, Lexi Thompson was entitled to be the youngest woman to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open at the age of only 12. She was only 15 years old when she became a professional golfer and had as amazing a career as she did as an amateur. A year later, at the age of 16, she again set a record by becoming the youngest golfer to have won an LPGA Tour after she won the Navistar LPGA Classic in 2011.

As an amateur, Lexi Thompson won the Aldila Junior Classic at the age of 12, becoming the second-youngest winner in the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA). That very year, she also won the Westfield Junior PGA Championship and became the youngest Junior PGA Championship winner. But that’s not all. For the next two years, she went on to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open. Before turning pro in 2009, she won the Verizon Junior Heritage following a sudden-death playoff with Israeli professional golfer Laetitia Beck, who turned pro four years later.

When the golf industry saw the photo, they instantly started appreciating Thompson’s merit as a kid.

Thompson’s early achievements shocked the golf industry
One of the fans stated, “Incredible. With that much success at a young age, it has to be extremely difficult to keep going out there and trying to compete at the highest level. Hard to manage expectations, I’d imagine.” Understanding Thompson’s psyche after she turned pro, the fan alludes to the fact that Thompson has not been winning as much as she did as a junior. Compared to her early days, Thompson has seen many failures, missed cuts, and poor rankings as a pro in her career. Thus, the fan vocalizes the difficulties that Lexi Thompson might have felt lately, as she missed three cuts consecutively this season at the Chevron Championship, the Cognizant Founder’s Cup, and the Mizuho Americas Open.