Few women have teed it up in a men’s professional golf tournament on the highest stage.
Two of the LPGA’s earliest stars paved the way in this department, and there have been a handful of notable starts since then. It’s a unique pressure that’s unlike anything else they’ve ever faced. Lexi Thompson will be the seventh woman to tee it up on the PGA Tour.
What follows is by no means an exhaustive list of women who have teed it up against the men (on any level, from state amateurs to mini tours) but instead, these are some of the more iconic moments of women teeing it up in a different arena and making history.
Photos: See Lexi Thompson’s career through the years
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Zaharias, one of the game’s great athletes, was instrumental in attracting early fanfare to the LPGA. Zaharias had the kind of game that allowed her to fit in on the PGA Tour, too, and in 1935, she played the Cascades Open. Zaharias missed the cut, but it started an 11-year stint during which she teed it up a handful of times with the men (becoming the first woman to do so).
Zaharias missed the cut at the 1938 Los Angeles Open (now known as the Genesis Invitational), but she played the event again in 1945 and did one better, making the 36-hole cut but missing a second cut to play the final round. She also played the Tucson Open and the Phoenix Open that year and teed it up again at the 1946 Los Angeles Open.
Shirley Spork
The late Spork was also an important figure in the early years of the LPGA and is remembered as one of the tour’s founders. She competed regularly in the early years of the LPGA before transitioning into golf instruction. As a result of that work, she was inducted into the PGA of America Hall of Fame in 2019 and the LPGA Hall of Fame last year. Spork made her first and only foray into PGA Tour competition at the 1952 Northern California-Reno Open.
Annika Sorenstam
When Sorenstam accepted a sponsor exemption into the Bank of America Colonial in 2003, several PGA Tour players voiced objections. Vijay Singh was among the loudest, famously saying he would withdraw should he be paired with her (he was not). Sorenstam went on to miss the cut by four shots, but she has referenced that week as a highlight of her decorated career. It was her first and only PGA Tour start.
Suzy Whaley
As it turned out, 2003 was a big year for women making PGA Tour appearances. Whaley, who in 2018 would become the first female President of the PGA of America, teed it up at the 2003 Greater Hartford Open just a few weeks after Sorenstam’s experience. She fired rounds of 75-78 and missed the cut. Whaley had earned her spot in the tournament by winning the Connecticut Section PGA Championship the previous year.
Michelle Wie West
The now-30-year-old Wie has the distinction of being the youngest woman ever to compete in a PGA Tour event. She was only 14 years old when she played the 2004 Sony Open. A second-round 68 helped her get within a stroke of making the cut. Ultimately, that was a feat that Wie would never pull off despite playing seven more PGA Tour events – on sponsor exemptions – from 2004 to 2008.
Brittany Lincicome
Playing in a men’s field wasn’t a totally foreign concept to Lincicome, a Florida native who has been known to use men’s mini-tour events as a tune-up for the LPGA season. In 2018, Lincicome played the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship and attempted to become the first woman since Zaharias to make a PGA Tour cut. She was behind the eight-ball early after an opening 78 and her second-round 71 sent her home early.
Lexi Thompson
Lexi Thompson will join this exclusive group on Thursday, Oct. 12, when she tees it up in the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas. Thompson will be in the field on a sponsor exemption at TPC Summerlin, which last year played 7,255 yards with a par of 71.
Playing alongside the men is nothing new for her, as she competed in the then-QBE Shootout for six years.
An 11-time winner on the LPGA, the 28-year-old Thompson has grown up on big stages since she first qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open at age 12.
Other notables
It wasn’t a PGA Tour start, but Pernilla Lindberg teed it up in the 2020 New Zealand Golf Open, a first in the event’s 101-year history. She played on a sponsor exemption, but missed the cut.
Linn Grant made a leap for the game by becoming the first woman to win on the DP World Tour in June of 2022. Grant crushed the field of 78 men and women by nine strokes with a closing 64 at the Scandinavian Mixed hosted by Henrik and Annika. The nearest woman finished 14 back. The men and women played from separate tees that week.
Kim Paez became the first woman to win the Southwest PGA Championship in the 66-year history of the event. A former Big West Conference champion at the University of California-Irvine, Paez shot 1-over 73 in the final round on the Cholla Course at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club in Fort McDowell, Arizona, for a one-shot victory.
