She’ll be only the fifth woman to play on the PGA Tour.
But does Brittany Lincicome have a shot when she tees it up this week at the Barbasol Championship at Nicholasville’s Keene Trace Golf Club?
Lincicome is the first woman since Michelle Wie to try her luck on the PGA Tour. She’s a big hitter—Lincicome is currently 6th in driving distance on the LPGA Tour—but that alone won’t be enough to get her to the weekend, and will actually make her short by PGA Tour standards.
Lincicome, who has eight LPGA Tour wins, including two majors, has played against men before. In high school, Lincicome played for the school’s boys’ team, something she said made her a better player.
What’s the hope for her appearance? Lincicome is gunning the make the cut, but admits she’s not putting too much pressure on herself.
“Obviously, I can already hear people saying you are trying to compare yourself to the men,” she said in a recent interview with USA Today. “That’s not what it is.”
What’s the goal then? A place in history?
Regardless of whether she makes the cut, Lincicome will become one of the rare examples of a woman who competed on the PGA Tour, and she brings some much-needed interest to the Barbasol Championship.
She’ll join three other women in recent decades who have tried their luck on the PGA Tour.
Annika Sorenstam: One of the LPGA Tour’s greatest players, Sorenstam was invited to the Colonial Invitational in 2003. A short, tight course, many thought she had a good chance at making the cut. She missed the cut by four shots, but proved she could play with the best male golfers in the world.
Suzy Whaley: Whaley, little known before qualifying into the Greater Hartford Open, missed the cut in her only PGA Tour event. But she elevated the female game by becoming the first female president of the PGA of America.
Michelle Wie: Wie’s attempts to make the cut at a PGA Tour event were notorious. As a teenager, the big-hitting star played 13 times on male tours, never making the cut. Eventually she’d move full-time on the LPGA Tour, but not before demonstrating that a female pro could have the power to play professional men’s golf.