Lexi Thompson playing with the men at the Franklin Templeton Shootout

Lexi Thompson is one of the boys this week at the Franklin Templeton Shootout. She’s teaming with fellow Cobra Puma Golf staff Bryson DeChambeau in the two-person team event hosted by Greg Norman, matching 24 players into duos over a three-round tournament featuring a different format each day.

“It’s going to be fun paired up with Bryson,” Thompson said Tuesday to the Naples Daily News. “I love team events and to get an invite from Greg Norman, you don’t get that very often. I’m going to have a good time and see how I do.”

DeChambeau, who earned his full PGA Tour card during the Web.com Tour Finals, sees Thompson’s participation as nothing but a benefit to the event and, more broadly, the sport.

“Anytime that you can have somebody from the other gender playing in the same field, I think that’s not an issue at all,” he said. “I love it. I think that’s going to be great for the game.”

Thompson said the idea for her to play came, in part, from Cobra Puma Golf CEO Bob Philion, who has a long-standing relationship with Norman, who has been affiliated with Cobra Golf going back decades.

Thompson, who is the second woman to compete in the event after Annika Sorenstam in 2006, will not get any break on the scorecard, either. She’ll play the same tees as the 23 men in the field at Tiburon Golf Club in Naples, Fla. Curiously, this club hosts the LPGA’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, and the LPGA plays the course some 600 yards shorter than the course will play these next three days.

For his part, Norman, on Wednesday, didn’t seem concerned.

“I have to do everything in my power to out-drive her,” Norman was quoted as saying. “She gets it out there to a point where I don’t think it’s a problem no matter where the PGA Tour puts the tee markers. She’s going to be able to hold her own.”

Devil Ball Golf – Golf – Yahoo Sports

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