Lexi Thompson’s shocking retirement got here with a heart-wrenching motive.
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LANCASTER, Pa. — On Tuesday on the U.S. Girls’s Open as with most days, the gang stared at Lexi Thompson.
And on Tuesday as with most days, Lexi stared proper again.
“Lexi! LEXI!!!” They yelled, one after the subsequent, a endless stream of memento flags and selfie requests testing the bounds of the ropeline, little arms poking by means of like little bayonets, every pointed sq. at Thompson’s chest. Each autograph signed and photograph taken spawned one other three, and earlier than lengthy the gang started to really feel much less like a gaggle of people and extra like a steadily rising, amorphous blob of wanting. Nevertheless it didn’t matter. For a number of moments, Lexi wished too. Not for the gang’s consideration or admiration, however to interrupt the bubble between her world and theirs.
And so she did.
If there’s a means the crowds will keep in mind Thompson, it’s for her persistence. Endurance that has allowed her to host hundreds of autograph periods like this one all through an 18-year skilled profession, which she introduced Tuesday would conclude on the Solheim Cup in September. Endurance that has allowed her to attach with tens of hundreds of individuals outdoors of the ropes, a lot of them younger girls, with a small gesture of goodwill. And persistence that has allowed her to do all of these items even within the wake of among the golf world’s most unimaginable lows — lows that she addressed for the primary time throughout a press convention saying her retirement on U.S. Girls’s Open Tuesday.
“Being out right here could be a lot,” she mentioned by means of tears. “It may be lonely. Sorry if I get emotional. I mentioned I wasn’t going to.”
I nonetheless keep in mind the primary time I witnessed Lexi’s reward for persistence. It was on the 2022 U.S. Girls’s Open at Pine Needles, minutes after Thompson had fallen brief once more on the most important stage within the girls’s sport, ending T20 in a bid to undo the earlier 12 months’s collapse. She signed autographs for near half-hour then, tears streaming down her face, stopping solely as soon as every of the women contained in the child-only space had acquired her consideration. I keep in mind most up-to-date time I’d witnessed it, too, on the Solheim Cup final September. One other devastating defeat, extra tears, and yet one more similarity: a number of dozen younger ladies who departed with autographs and smiles.
These scenes felt exceptional on the time and this one, early Tuesday morning, felt exceptional too, given Thompson was saying her determination to retire from a “full-time enjoying schedule.” She’s a child by skilled golf requirements, simply 29 years outdated in a sport the place many gamers don’t hit their prime till nicely into their 30s. However she’s an historical 29 by life expertise, 17 years into knowledgeable profession that has introduced her fabulous wealth and, on a couple of event, unfathomable heartbreak.
Typically the load of a golf profession may be measured not in wins, losses and accidents however in scars, and as Lexi opened up on “years” of struggles on Tuesday afternoon, it was clear the latter finally proved crippling.
“I simply assume, particularly with what’s occurred in golf, as of just lately, too, lots of people don’t notice what we undergo as knowledgeable athlete,” Thompson mentioned. “I’ll be the final one to say, throw me a pity get together. That’s the very last thing I need. We’re doing what we love. We’re attempting the very best each single day. , we’re not good. We’re people,” she mentioned. “Phrases damage. It’s exhausting to beat typically.”
Lexi’s humanity has by no means been trigger for debate — actually, the examples of her flawed brilliance are too many to depend. There have been the back-nine collapses on the ’21 U.S. Open at Olympic and the ’22 Girls’s PGA, the prolonged depart of absence on the top of her powers for causes associated to psychological well being, and who may overlook the TV-viewer controversy on the 2017 ANA Inspiration that value her the event, later altering the principles of golf?
However humanity additionally comes with its prices. For all her affection amongst the followers, Lexi has loved an embattled relationship with the general public. She has earned a fame among the many press for avoiding questions after her greatest setbacks, and even Tuesday’s retirement “letter” featured a reference to what she referred to as an “unfair” profession. Whereas her greatest moments have revealed her to be fallible, her quiet moments have led some to accuse her of being fragile, or worse, missing accountability. On Tuesday, although, Thompson’s retirement presser featured none of these qualities.
“I may not have an enormous buddy group, however to have the those who matter probably the most round me have gotten me by means of some actually exhausting instances,” she mentioned. “I feel it’s rather a lot for everybody out right here or in any skilled sport. Lots of people don’t know what we undergo. The quantity of coaching and exhausting work that we put ourselves by means of, it’s rather a lot. I feel we deserve much more credit score than what we get.”
Maybe these had been the phrases of a participant who’s come to grips together with her personal {golfing} mortality. Or maybe they had been the phrases of somebody who, after 17 childhood within the golf fishbowl, has realized that life continues after the heartbreak stops.
“The toughest second of my profession was like a blessing as a result of it was simply I realized a lot and I gained followers that I by no means thought I’d have,” she mentioned on the finish of her press convention, welling up once more as she recalled catastrophe on the ANA. “I’m not going to sit down right here and say that second didn’t damage. It nonetheless does, but it surely’s a part of a profession.”
As her apply spherical reached its conclusion, Thompson stared out into the gang. Her mother and father had funneled into the again of the inexperienced together with her canine in tow. Legions of her fellow rivals cooed praises from the apply vary simply ft away, whereas a crowd waited for her with near-unanimous pleasure.
If this was the end result of her profession, Lexi Thompson appeared comfortable. She had spent a lifetime trying to find one thing, and it turned out she’d had all of it alongside.
It was proper there on the opposite aspect of the ropes, staring her straight within the face.
You may attain the writer at james.colgan@golf.com
