Curtis Thompson earns back Korn Ferry Tour membership via Second Stage

At the end of 2017, Curtis Thompson was wondering what was going to come next – and it might not have been golf.

“Mentally, physically, I was just ready to quit,” he says. “I was absolutely done.”

Thompson had solid 2015 and 2016 seasons on the Korn Ferry Tour, comfortably finishing inside the top-75 on the money list both years.

Something, he’s still not sure what, happened at the end of 2017. He woke up one morning, with no idea why, and couldn’t break 85 or 90. He didn’t know what was wrong – and he still doesn’t.

“I tried to play but just never had it,” says Thompson, who withdrew from his final three events of the 2017 season. “When I saw I didn’t have it and didn’t want to do any more damage to my mental state, I just hung it up.”

Thompson managed to dig some semblance of a golf game out of the dirt in the two months after the Regular Season had finished. He had eyes on First Stage of Q-School again.

Although he shot 14-under at First Stage in 2017, he still missed out on earning his card. He ended up playing 13 events the following year but missed nine cuts. When he did find the weekend, he finished close to the bottom of the leaderboard.

“That was the low point,” Thompson admits.

A celebrated collegiate golfer at LSU and with golf in his family’s blood – brother Nicholas has played a mix of the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour over the last decade, while sister Lexi is one of the LPGA Tour’s superstars – Thompson ended up taking the whole of 2019 away from PGA TOUR-sanctioned golf.

He caddied at Pine Tree Golf Club, a course near his Floridian home, for the balance of the last year. Thompson also caddied for sister Lexi at a couple of LPGA events including the QBE Shootout, where she teed it up alongside male pros.

The members at Pine Tree, he said, were all very nice to him. The job allowed him to make some money.

“While I figured what I wanted to do with my life,” Thompson said of his looper life. “Did I want to go back to school? Or did I want to give it another try?”

Golf won out, although Thompson says through most of 2018, he listened to too many teachers and ended up getting worse. For how far down golf’s bottom he went, he’s started to crawl his way back – as evident by his performance at First and Second Stage of Q-School this fall.

The 26-year-old was the medalist at his Second Stage site (brother Nicholas also advanced from the same site in Florida) and he said he’s been working with instructor Martin Hall to help him with his swing.

Hall and Thompson’s college coach, Chuck Winstead, worked together in the past and since Thompson played some his best golf in college, he figured it would be an agreeable relationship. So far, so good.

“A month before First Stage, I went to Martin and I said, ‘I’m going to take a risk on myself (and) reconstruct what I’m doing,’” said Thompson. “I went to Martin and said, ‘This is what I’ve got; this is what I’m giving you. Make it this.’ I didn’t go as far down as I did in (2017) but I worked and worked and worked.

“It’s nice to know you can hit shots when you want them.”

Thompson’s approach to golf during this fall’s Q-School run has proven fruitful.

He still needs to have a solid finish at Final Stage in order to earn guaranteed starts for next year – the top-40 finishers (and ties) will secure spots in the first eight events of 2020.

But he’s at least in a position to have some Korn Ferry Tour status next season – a far cry from what he was doing not that long ago.

Thompson said he and his brother will head to Orange County National for a 36-hole practice day in early December, in order to quash some of the in-week work for Final Stage. Being a native Floridian will help, too, he says – he’ll know the grass and the weather and the winds better than most in the field.

There is still some lingering doubt about his game, he admits. In 2017, he was hitting shots he had never seen before. The shots that resulted in him shooting in the mid-80s will never leave his brain.

“They’ll always be there, unfortunately,” he said. “I’m not thinking about them, and like I said, I feel like I’m a better player now.”

The new Curtis Thompson takes a mature approach to a game that has frustrated so many. He had more firepower in 2015 and 2016, he said, but things could get also squirrely, fast. Now it’s back to basics – fairways, greens, birdies when he can – and back to happiness.

“Now,” he says with a laugh, “I can play golf.”