“Pretty sad when you’re at -4 in the season-ending event, which could easily be the last CME of your career and you won’t even finish on #18 because they decide to double tee on the final day due to TV coverage window” – Lexi Thompson
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of The Sopranos. Younger readers (do they actually exist?) may not be intimately familiar with the HBO show that broke new ground in the drama series landscape in the late ’90s and noughties, but it’s a masterpiece, centred around Tony Soprano, a New Jersey Mafia boss with more than his fair share of problems both professionally and domestically.
One of Tony’s popular refrains laments the ever-increasing societal need for attention, for a shoulder to cry on, which is a little ironic because the first time he utters the phrase is when visiting a psychiatrist in the opening episode. “Whatever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type,” he asks. No bitching, no moaning, no complaining, he just did what he had to do.
Whatever indeed?
I don’t need extra encouragement to reference the show, but partly because I’m trying to get me better half into it which also me an excuse for what must be a 10th or 11th rewatch of the series and the opening episode is fresh in my mind, it just seemed apt when I read Lexi’s comments which she delivered on Instagram after finishing up on the 9th hole at the LPGA’s CME Group Tour Championship.
So, Lexi is retired, right? Gone, never to be seen again? Golf’s equivalent of sleeping with the fishes.
No, not quite. The only thing she’s retiring from is a full-time schedule. She’ll play again next year, and she’ll play multiple times. But how dare the LPGA not roll out the red carpet for the mini-retirement of a player that’s won one major in 66 attempts?
Sure, she made history by becoming the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open when she made it to Southern Pines as a 12-year-old in 2007, and then joined the pro ranks at 15. She’s had a great career, but she’s underachieved by taking just 11 LPGA Tour wins in her 14 years as a pro.
Now, I’m not begrudging her a fine send off from the media. After all, she’s given us plenty to write about over the years – for better and for worse – and we even featured a lengthy interview with her in the most recent issue of our print magazine and had her image on the cover as well. But it’s one thing for the press to decide that her career is worthy of celebrating, it’s another altogether to complain that the LPGA didn’t alter the tournament format just so Lexi could bask in the glory of fans who couldn’t otherwise be bothered to walk the 30 yards to the 9th green where she actually finished up.
That the LPGA actually need to have a two-tee-start on weekend rounds is another issue entirely, one caused by allowing criminally slow play to infect the Tour on a weekly basis, and I’d have no problems with Thompson sounding off on that issue on a more regular basis.
Of course, it’s not as though Lexi’s chances of finishing up on the 18th were out of her control. The best way to ensure you start the final round on the first tee and not the 10th is to play better than half the field over the first 54 holes. Manage that, and you’re good. Otherwise, that’s on you I’m afraid.
And there’s something a little unsettling about the need for sports stars to get this great big send off too. It hit peak madness when former Chelsea captain John Terry was choreographically substituted in the 26th minute of his final game for the club because, wait of it, 26 is the number he wore on his back. What a load of sanctimonious sh**e. I’m sure people have been ‘whacked’ for less.
Golfers don’t really retire anyway, not in the way footballers or other top sports stars do, they just become part-time players who pop up every now and then as a sponsor’s invite or because they get bored, but if you’re genuinely retiring, just wave to the crowds (if you’re lucky enough to have them), say your thanks and walk off into the sunset, and if you’re worthy of remembrance, you’ll live on anyway.
That’s the way Gary Cooper would’ve done it.
But they don’t make them like Gary Cooper anymore. Whatever happened to his like?