Leonard Thompson

Height: 6 ft. 1 in 

Weight: 215 lbs 

Birthday:  01/01/1947

College:  Wake Forest University

Turned Pro: 1971 

Birthplace: Laurinburg, North Carolina

Country:  United States

Sponsor: Titleist 

Thompson was part of a successful golf team at Wake Forest where he was team mates with future PGA Tour winners, Lanny Wadkins and Joe Inman. After graduating in 1969, he waited two years before turning pro in 1971. His first full season on the PGA Tour was in 1972. He had four top 10s which included a third place and runner-up finish. It was in 1974 that Thompson captured his first PGA Tour win. It came at the Jackie Gleason-Inverrary Classic where he shot a final round of 68 to beat Hale Irwin by a single stroke. He would win again in 1977, this time aided by back to back rounds of 65 to defeat Curtis Strange by two strokes at the Pensacola Open.

Despite coming close a number of times, it wasn’t for another 11 years that Thompson would capture his third and final PGA Tour win. It came at the age of 42 at the Buick Open where he finished one stroke ahead of Billy Andrade, Payne Stewart and Doug Tewell. Thompson would lose his card after the 1992 season and would never regain it. He played on the Nationwide Tour sparingly for a few years to stay sharp before he became eligible for the Champions Tour in 1997. He won his first event in 1998 at the Coldwell Banker Burnet Classic after a play-off with Japanese golfer Isao Aoki. His second win would come against the same opponent after a play-off, this time at the State Farm Senior Classic. Thompson’s third and final win came in 2001 at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Match Play Championship. He is currently 68 years old and still plays a couple of events each year. He has played in over a combined 1,000 events between the PGA and Champions Tours.