FanHouse Alexis Thompson

Imagine for a minute Tiger Woods going over five months without winning a PGA Tour event. The world, as golf journalist know it, would stop. We'd be calling for his head, his swing and his spikes. It would be Armageddon, birdie edition.

Well, that was the current situation in the LPGA. Lorena Ochoa, the best female golfer in the world, won her last event in April, at the Corona Championship, and was looking like she might not win again in 2009 until Sunday at the Navistar Classic.

Tied for the lead after two rounds, Ochoa turned her game to red, shooting eight under on the weekend to claim her third victory of the year. Her final 18-under tally was four clear of the second place finishers, Michelle Wie and Brittany Lang, and well ahead of the early story, 14-year-old Alexis Thompson.

It would have been fun.

It would have been fun to see a girl two years shy of earning a driver's license make a run at a professional golf tournament, becoming the youngest player to ever win an LPGA event. That is what Alexis Thompson was trying to do after a first round 65 was followed up with a 3-under 69 on Friday, giving her a share of the lead in the LPGA Navistar Classic. It would have been fun, but this is why 14-year-olds don't normally win professional sporting events.

Thompson, competing in just her fifth LPGA tournament as an amateur, was trying to become the first non-professional to win on the LPGA tour since 1969, when JoAnne Carner took home the Burdine's Invitational. So needless to say, seeing a girl with an asterisk on the top of a leaderboard is pretty rare. On Saturday, Thompson struggled to a 2-over 74, leaving her eight shots back of who else, Lorena Ochoa with 18 holes to play.

---

---

Alexis Thompson's Web site proudly proclaims her as "golf's next big star," and if she keeps up the play she's brought to the first two rounds of the LPGA Navistar Classic, it might just be true.

After a first round 65 that had her a shot back of the leader, the 14-year-old Thompson joined an elite group at 10-under after her second straight sub-70 round, firing a 3-under 69 in her fifth career LPGA tournament. Before Thursday, Thompson had never broke 71, but the amateur continues to play well.

That is the good news. The bad news for Thompson fans is the group she is a part of. Lorena Ochoa and Laura Davies both are in the group of five at 10-under, along with Yani Tseng and Giulia Sergas.

---

---

Update: Janice Moodie, a LPGA veteran, birdied six of her last seven holes on Thursday to take the lead over Thompson by one shot.

Most 14-year-olds are focused on one thing and one thing only ... getting ready for the leap into the nasty world of freshman year of high school. Alexis Thompson is currently worried how she's going to follow up a first round 65 in the LPGA Navistar Classic.

A week after a 13-year-old made a hole-in-one in her first ever trip to the LPGA, Thompson made eight birdies on the Robert Trent Jones design in Prattville, Al., leading a shot over Michelle Wie (remember when she was the young one?) and two shots clear of a big group at 5-under.

---

---