Page 20 - Golf Champion - August 2020

[PGA TOUR]

Michael Thompson shoots 67 to

win at 3M Open

67타로 3M오픈에서 우승한 마이클 톰슨

LAINE, Minn. (Photo PGA Tour)– No words really which is being played on his favorite course in the world
needed to be said. And it was a good thing, too, at Winged Foot.
Bbecause when Michael Thompson FaceTimed So, is it any surprise that Thompson and Rachel, a doc-
his wife Rachel, the woman he calls his “rock,” after tor of physical therapy whom he met when both were stu-
dents at Tulane, were so emotional?
he won the 3M Open on Sunday afternoon, they both
“She knows the work that I've put in, the early mornings
dissolved into tears. The road to his second PGA TOUR
going to the gym, the time I've spent with Justin Parsons,
victory has been a long one for the 35-year-old. And for
my swing coach, practice, being away from the kids,”
the better part of the 2,702 days that have passed since
Thompson said. “This is what we do all that work for and
he won the 2013 Honda Classic, Thompson lived on
so it's just so exciting that I now get to celebrate that with
the fringes of the PGA TOUR, in a seemingly constant
them. What a week.”
battle to keep to his card. Actually, you could say, what a year for the Thompsons.
All that changed on Sunday, though, when Thompson The week after THE PLAYERS Championship was can-
made a 15-footer for birdie on the 72nd hole for an em- celed, the couple and their son Jace – who was “bouncing
phatic two-stroke victory. He now has job security through off the walls like every three-year-old does and excited to
the 2022-23 season and a ton of confidence to go with it. see me on the TV,” Thompson said on Sunday – went to
He’s a lock for a deep run into the FedExCup Playoffs, too Kansas to adopt their second child, a daughter who they
– maybe even to the finale at East Lake in Atlanta -- af- named Laurel Marie. Thompson and his wife were in the
ter moving from 151st to 39th. And there are other perks, delivery room, as they had been when Jace was born. The
too. Take this week’s World Golf Championships-FedEx new dad even got to cut the umbilical cord. They spent
St. Jude Invitational where he’ll make just his fourth WGC the next 27 days in Kansas waiting on the paperwork to
start on a course he says he “absolutely loves.” And for the be completed as the pandemic shutdown prompted legal
first time since 2013, he nabbed a spot in the U.S. Open – delays.

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