Female golf phenomenon Alexis Thompson has recently filed a petition to the LPGA asking tournament officials to grant her more time for playing in next year’s games. Thompson currently is ineligible to apply for membership under LPGA’s rules, and will have to wait until eighteen years of age before being deemed a qualifier. On the other hand, Thompson’s petition did not clearly include a request for her to be granted membership. Instead, Thompson requested for a lot more exemptions regarding sponsors.
Current LPGA rules puts a cap on sponsor exemptions for non-members, which is specifically six per season of the game. Thomson, meanwhile, requested for double that number which is four more sponsor exemptions than what is allowed in the US Women’s Open and the Women’s British Open. Thompson’s agent, Bobby Kreusler, was quoted by the Golf Examiner as saying that the 15-year-old wonder kid was able to earn $336,472 from the limited time that she spent playing in the tournament.
That would easily place Thompson on LPGA’s ladder list of highest earning golfers. Still, LPGA was able to counter that argument by stating that using their own computation formulas, Thompson was only able to earn $21,000, which puts her much lower than her agent’s 29th rank estimate. Meanwhile, a fellow female golfer and LPGA member was forced to quit from the tournament due to extreme back pains. Natalie Gulbis, who commanded a strong following from her fans over her 8 years of being a pro, underwent laser surgery on her spine in January.