News from the world of women's amateur golf

Alexis Thompson could try to win LPGA

Tour spurs BEFORE Curtis Cup at Nairn

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Golf Week's female specialist golf writer Beth Ann Baldry is early enough with her forecast of what the United States team of eight will be for the defence of the Curtis Cup at Essex County Club, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachussetts from June 11 to 13.
She speculates that the home line-up will be:
Jennifer Song, Alexis Thompson, Kimberly Kim, Jennifer Johnson, Candace Schepperle, Cydney Clanton, Jessica Korda and Stephanie Kono.
Of the US team who beat Great Britain & Ireland over the Old Course, St Andrews in May-June 2008, all bar Kimberly Kim and Meghan (maiden name Bolger) Stasi have turned professional since Carol Semple Thompson led them to victory in Scotland.
Alexis Thompson, pictured above, is the rising star of American golf - "better than Michelle Wie according to some" - with a string of victories on her impressive golfing CV - and she is still only 14. Alexis (born 1995) will become 15 on February 10 which means that Michelle Wie's record as the youngest player in Curtis Cup history is "safe." Michelle (date of birth November 10, 1989) was 14 years old when she helped the Americans win the 2004 Curtis Cup match at Formby.
Thompson will almost certainly play in the 2012 Curtis Cup match over the Nairn Golf Club's links. Now that's something to look forward, even two years and more in advance!
The only fly in the ointment is that she might, just might be a professional by then. Alexis will have her 17th birthday in February 2012 - and the 2012 Curtis Cup match will be played in May-June.
Beth Ann Baldry writes in her Golf Week column that there is just a chance that Alexis will try to win her LPGA Tour spurs at the 2011 Q School at an age, 16 going on 17, when, like Carly Booth in Europe, she will need special dispensation to duck under the LPGA's minimum age rule of 18.
I have no wish to hold back Miss Thompson's progress towards becoming a superstar. But, fingers crossed, she waits until after playing in the Curtis Cup match at Nairn before she turns professional!

No college days for home-schooled Alexis Thompson
SEBRING, Florida. – When Alexis Thompson knocked in a 12-footer on the 18th green last Wednesday to shoot 71, an IMG representative stood nearby. Agents don’t normally come to Sebring, where iced fairways pushed back tee times at the Harder Hall Women's Invitational. Obviously, Thompson is special, writes Beth Ann Baldry.
OK, Alexis, you’re probably tired of this question.
“College?” she asked.
Everyone knows that’s not happening.
(Thompson smiled).
When do you plan to sign up for LPGA Q-School?
“Maybe at 17 I’ll try,” she said. “My dad does all the decision-making. I just show up and play.”
(This reporter’s guess is age 16 for Q-School in 2011. She’d be 17 when the 2012 LPGA season starts).
The 14-year-old home-schooler is in the midst of a five-week amateur golf odyssey. She started the stretch with a victory at the Junior Orange Bowl in Miami, then finished runner-up at the Women's Dixie Amateur.
Frustrated with her final-round performance, she immediately went to instructor Jim McLean for a two-hour tune-up. The consensus: She has been swinging too much with her upper body and needs to get more on the right side.
Three of the five events are home games for Thompson. She has had several friends/competitors stay at her house in Coral Springs. This week’s slumber party is at her grandparents’ house in Sebring.
Then she’ll move on to the South Atlantic Amateur (Sally) in Ormond Beach, followed by the Doherty Championship in South Florida, two tournaments she won last year.
Thompson prefers this hectic five-week run to a schedule that’s spread out.
“I actually like it better than practicing at home, because then I get a funk in my swing,” she said.
While Thompson hasn’t slowed down this holiday season, Cydney Clanton’s game was benched by the Carolina cold. Clanton, of Concord, North Carolina, came to Sebring to try and regain the momentum she had last fall at Auburn University. She finished the semester No. 2 in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings after winning the NCAA Fall Preview.
But Clanton, like several other players, also is thinking Curtis Cup. The college junior has a legitimate shot of landing a spot on the eight-player team, especially with a strong finish in the Harder Hall Invitational.
Last summer Clanton advanced to the quarter-finals of the US Women’s Amateur Public Links, the Sweet 16 of the U.S. Women’s Amateur and the final of the North & South Amateur.

Louise Kenney, Jane Turner flying out to Florida for "Sally"

Curtis Cup team place contender Louise Kenney (Pitreavie) and Scotland international team-mate Jane Turner (Craigielaw) fly out this weekend to Florida to join the Orange Blossom Tour in time for the second event, the "Sally" - South Atlantic Ladies Amateur - at Oceanside Country Club, Ormond Beach, writes Colin Farquharson
The 72-hole stroke-play event tees off on Wednesday.
English women's amateur champion, the left-handed Charlie Douglass (Brocket Hall) from Stevenage, is also in the star-studded field and, like Louise, will be hoping to go some way towards clinching a place in the GB&I team for the Curtis Cup match with a strong performance in Florida.
If it seems a bit early to be talking about clinching a place in a team six months ahead of the match, you have to realise that the LGU Selection Committee are due to select/announce their team of eight over the weekend of the Helen Holm Scottish women's open amateur stroke-play at Royal Troon and Troon Portland (April 23-25).
So there will be little or no time left to impress the selectors with 2010 domestic performances. It will have to be done with results on "foreign fields," namely Florida (the Orange Blossom Tour), Portugal (the Portuguese women's amateur championship) and Spain (Spanish women's amateur championship & the Hacienda del Alamo Festival).
Alexis Thompson, who won the "Sally" last year by a staggering 13 shots with a total of 283, is defending the prestigious title. Canada's Kira Meixner was runner-up and Scottish Under-21 champion Kelsey MacDonald (Stirling Univ & Nairn Dunbar) was third with 297 12 months ago.

The British & Irish players in the "Sally" field will be:
Harriet Beasley (Stirling Univ & Woburn).
Rachel Cassidy (Stirling Univ & The Island, Dublin).
Charlie Douglass (Brocket Hall).
Jordana Graham (Stirling Univ & Southerness).
Louise Kenney (Pitreavie).
Kelsey MacDonald (Stirling Univ & Nairn Dunbar).
Eilidh Mackay (Stirling Univ & Nairn Dunbar).
Laurin Mackin (Majora & Ranfurly Castle).
Stephanie Meadow (Hilton Head Island & Royal Portrush).
Jane Turner (Robert Gordon Univ & Craigielaw).
Rebecca Wilson (Stirling Univ & Monifieth).