‘Should Not Be Officials Wearing Stripes’: Tiger Woods Fiercely Rushed to the Defense of Lexi Thompson Over Her Harrowing Controversy in 2017

Lexi Thompson, a well-known player in the LPGA golf fraternity, was the youngest female golfer to qualify for the US women’s open at the early age of 12. But her journey in golf hasn’t been an easy one. 2017 brought a massive nightmare to Thompsons’s golf journey. Ana Inspiration which is presently known as Chevron Championship shook the belief of the whole golf fraternity.

Lexi Thompson had a fair chance at winning the 2017 Chevron Championship. Strangely, a weird rule of golf was added, that forcefully added several penalties to her score. And Thompson ended up losing the title. This sudden reversal of rules not only broke Lexi’s heart but rather angered the whole golf community. Major golf players including Tiger Woods came out in support of Lexi Thompson against the injustice.

Golfing legend Tiger Woods stood in support with Lexi Thompson

Lexi Thompson, the current world number 7, was in a lead against her competitor, So Yeon Ryu. But either she was not destined to win or she was tricked into not winning it. The officials penalized 4 of her shots in the fourth round as she broke the rules in the previous round. The tour officials also gave Thompson a 2-shot penalty for infringement to add on to her plight. You would think that was it, but no. Further a 2-shot penalty was also credited to her, for signing a wrong scoreboard.

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Tiger Woods stood in support with Lexi Thompson and in a Tweet wrote, “Viewers at home should not be officials wearing stripes. Let’s go @Lexi, win this thing anyway.” Not just him, some of the golf professionals including Paul Goydos and Cheyenne Woods also criticized the controversial rules on their Twitter handles.  

Paul Goydos took on to his Twitter handle and wrote, “That rule is broken every time a ball is marked“.  Cheyenne Woods also tweeted, ” Viewers should not be able to call in rulings.” Lexi Thompson while explaining how she felt after the 2017 fiasco, she said, “That night was extremely rough. I was screaming, and crying. I had nightmares about it. Still occasionally do. But the fans were behind me the weeks after, and the months after. I stayed off social media after that. I just hung out with my family, and just kind of stayed to myself.”