Thompson Receives Exemption into Major

January 30, 2009

By David Shefter, USGA

Far Hills, N.J. - Alexis Thompson won't celebrate her 14th birthday for another 12 days, but that didn't stop the reigning U.S. Girls' Junior champion from receiving an early present.

The Coral Springs, Fla., resident received one of the coveted amateur exemptions into the 2009 Kraft Nabisco Championship, the Miami Herald reported Friday. The LPGA Tour's first major of the season will be played April 2-5 at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Traditionally, the Kraft Nabisco has always invited about a half-dozen top amateurs. The reigning U.S. Women's Amateur champion generally gets an exemption. This year that would go to Duke University senior Amanda Blumenherst of Scottsdale, Ariz., who has previously played and made the cut in the event.

None of the amateur exemptions have officially been announced.

Thompson has been on a tear in January, winning the South Atlantic Ladies Amateur by 13 strokes and then last weekend claiming the Ione D. Jones/Doherty Women's Championship with a 5-and-4 win over Scotland's Kelsey MacDonald to become the youngest winner of that competition. Two-time U.S. Women's Amateur champion and current LPGA Tour player Vicki Goetze had owned that record at 16 years, 3 months (1989).

In 2007, Thompson became the youngest to ever qualify for the U.S. Women's Open when she did so at 12 years, 4 months. Later that summer, she became the youngest quarterfinalist in U.S. Women's Amateur history. Last year, she qualified again for the Women's Open, but like in 2007, failed to make the 36-hole cut. The Kraft Nabisco will be her third appearance in a LPGA Tour major.

"That's kind of a fast way to jump in the water," said Scott Thompson, Alexis' father, in the Miami Herald . "But that's OK. It's all good.

"We've talked about it a lot - maybe too much because you can get your hopes up too far. It's nice that she got invited."

Last summer, Thompson became the second-youngest champion in U.S. Girls' Junior history with a 5-and-4 win over fellow 13-year-old Karen Chung at Hartford Golf Club in West Hartford, Conn. She also competed in the U.S. Women's Amateur at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club, but lost in the first round.

The Kraft Nabisco has had a history of young players in its fields. Michelle Wie, the 2003 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links champion and a 2004 USA Curtis Cupper, participated in the 2004 event at 13 and tied for ninth. A year later she finished solo fourth.

Aree Song Wongluekiet, the youngest U.S. Girls' Junior champion (13 years, 3 months in 1999), tied for 10th in 2000 at 13. And Morgan Pressel made her debut at the Kraft Nabisco at 17, a couple of months before she tied for second at the U.S. Women's Open and later won the U.S. Women's Amateur. Two years later, Pressel became the youngest major-championship winner when she won the 2007 Kraft Nabisco at 18.

David Shefter is a USGA Digital Media staff writer. E-mail him with questions or comments at dshefter@usga.org .