Women's PGA: What, Lexi worry?

Writing from Kildeer, Illinois

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

It’s great – beyond great, in fact – to know you have all the talent in the world and can get the feel of a golf course in one or two circuits of it.

Lexi Thompson can do that.

She’ll do so this week at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Kemper Lakes Golf Club.

“If I can’t figure it out in two days ...” Thompson said Tuesday, channeling Dustin Johnson’s similar comments before the recent U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. “I usually just let my natural talent go.”

That, Thompson has in abundance. Yet she hasn’t won yet this season, and eschewed a practice round on Monday in order to play in the CVS Charity Classic, a one-day outing in Rhode Island that brings together players from the LPGA, PGA and Champions circuits to benefit worthy causes in that state.

Don’t think Thompson is treating the third major of the season in cavalier fashion. She sent her caddie to Kemper Lakes direct from the LPGA tournament in Arkansas, and he walked the course on Monday, confirming yardages and spying the proper line of play.

“My caddie did say it’s a good setup for me,” Thompson said. “I’m a little bit longer and I’ll be able to hit a good amount of drivers hopefully.”

Kemper Lakes will play 6,741 yards, more or less, which is a healthy poke or two for the ladies, and will likely play even longer, at least at first, after last weekend’s downpour, plus a thunderstorm on Tuesday morning, and more rain in the late afternoon, which played havoc with the pro-am. The big show commences on Thursday, but the course may not fully dry out until next week.

Michelle Wie had seen the course before her pro-am circuit on Tuesday, but remembered it not at all. She had an excuse: Her previous appearance here was in 2001, when she played in the U.S. Women’s Public Links Championship as an 11-year-old.

“If I said I remembered this golf course, I’d be lying,” Wie said with a laugh. “I have a lot of great memories but not of the golf course.”

Tuesday’s trek made it obvious to Wie when others believe, that the final three holes, the combination of the long par-4, peninsula par-3 and waterlogged dogleg par-4, which members have named the Gauntlet, will be decisive. 

“Sixteen, it’s a real tricky green,” Wie said. “Seventeen is a great par-3; depending on where they put the pin, it changes the hole completely. Eighteen speaks for itself, water on both ends. It’s just a great layout.”

That will be music to the membership’s ears. 

– Tim Cronin