Brooke Henderson don’t need no stinkin’ tour

Posted: June 19, 2015 9:10 pm

Brooke Henderson doesn’t know how to win big-league golf tournaments yet, which makes sense, since she’s 17 years old.

You’ve got to admire her hands-on approach to figuring it out.

Henderson, from Canada, finished 10th in the U.S. Women’s Open and second in the Women’s Amateur last year. She turned pro in December of last year and petitioned the LPGA for an exception to its age-18 minimum.

She was turned down. so is instead playing the 2015 season via Monday open qualifying and sponsor’s exemptions.

At the Swinging Skirts in San Francisco in April, she shot 65 Friday, led into Sunday afternoon, and finished third.

Then she flew to Texas, Monday qualified for the North Texas Shootout, opened with 69-65 to lead again, then faded to finish 13th.

In seven starts, she has had seven rounds in the 60s on Thursdays and Fridays, and just two on Saturdays and Sundays, and none while in contention.

The answer to that, of course, is to keep knocking on the door.

She qualified for last week’s Women’s LPGA championship, a major, based on her place on the money list (33rd) of a tour she isn’t a member of. She opened at Westchester with a six under-par 67.

Then her caddie, who’s also her dad, opened up on the tour, which he believes should make his daughter a full member now.

“We hope [LPGA commissioner] Mike Whan meets with the committee and that there is a democratic process,” Bruce Henderson told Ron Sirak of Golf Digest. “Brooke is good for golf, she’s good for revenue, she brings young people into the game.”

That’s the sound of a stage dad. Henderson has enormous potential, but at this stage she isn’t selling tickets or bringing young people to the game. Even if she was, there is no “democratic process,” here; there is an organization that has rules and can’t be expected to ignore them.

Whatever. Henderson will almost certainly be a tour member next year, and she will certainly be in Lancaster next month, exempt and overqualified and still banging on the door.