Lexi Thompson, 29, to retire from full-time competition

Lexi Thompson, the 29-year-old LPGA star who made a cameo on the PGA TOUR last fall and whose two older brothers have held TOUR cards, will be retiring from fulltime competition at the end of this year, she announced on Instagram on Tuesday.

The winner of 11 tournaments on the LPGA Tour, including one major, Thompson had a long career that started early. She was only 12 at the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open, becoming the youngest at the time to qualify, and was 14 when she made the cut in that historic tournament.

She was 15 when she finished runner-up at the 2010 Evian Masters. This week will mark her 18th consecutive start in the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country Club.

Long one of the best American players, Thompson played in six Solheim Cups and was a two-time Olympian. This season had been a struggle, with Thompson missing the cut in four of her six starts, including her last three. She is winless on the LPGA Tour since 2019, and her close calls in a handful of majors were painful, but her popularity never waned.

Last fall, Thompson became just the seventh woman to play in a PGA TOUR event at the Shriners Children’s Open, where she shot a second-round 69 and threatened to become the first woman to make a cut on the PGA TOUR since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945.

After an opening-round 73, Thompson wowed in Round 2, briefly reaching 4-under. But bogeys on Nos. 5 and 8, two of her final five holes, gave her a 2-under 69. Although she missed the cut by three, it was just the second sub-70 score by a woman in PGA TOUR history.

Her older brothers, Nicholas and Curtis, have also played on the PGA TOUR.

Thompson also played alongside Rose Zhang, Rory McIlroy and Max Homa at "Capital One’s The Match," a 12-hole charity skins game, at The Park at West Palm Beach in February.