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The Loop

Even Arnold Palmer appreciated how Kyle Thompson resurrected his career

June 09, 2015

The story of Kyle Thompson's victory in the Web.com Tour's Rex Hospital Open last week was a compelling one that only got better in its aftermath.

Thompson, 36, was on the verge of giving up his career and returning to the real world.

"If I didn't make the cut, I was going to have to give it up, switch gears and start a job search," Thompson told Greenville Online contributing writer John Brasier. Thompson has a wife and two small children to support and he no longer had PGA Tour or Web.com Tour status.

The victory and the $112,500 he received for it have revived his career. Then he got home and found this bonus in the mail:

"It was particularly impressive that, as you said, that you had pretty much put your future on the line and you teed it up at Wakefield in just your second start of the web.com season," Arnold Palmer wrote. "And to win it in a playoff to boot."

Palmer is a prolific letter writer and is known to send letters to winners of PGA Tour events. But for a Web.com Tour player in Thompson's position, the Palmer letter surely was, if not as treasured as the victory, a close second.