Michelle Wie, who turned professional at 16 but did not join the tour until 18, has found her way by dividing her time between the LPGA tour and Stanford University. Mind you, not everybody is going to be clever enough to keep up at Stanford while attending only two terms out of every three.
Going back to Thompson and her early switch to the professional ranks, there will be plenty to suggest that she might just be a better golfer now that she is ever going to be in the future and that it is surely better for her to strike, so to speak, while her irons are hot. Laura Davies, for one, would go along with that, her feeling being that if a player is good enough, it does not matter how old she is. “It’s a weird life whatever age you are,” said Davies.
If everyone were as street-wise as Davies, the LPGA could let the young players pour into their ranks with no questions asked.
The truth, though, is that they are mostly at the other end of the spectrum. In some cases, they will be storing up trouble for themselves at much the same rate as they bank the prize-money.
