.jpg/180px-2009_LPGA_Championship_-_Paula_Creamer_(1).jpg)
Creamer during a practice round at the
2009 LPGA Championship
Paula Creamer (born August
5, 1986), nicknamed the "Pink Panther," is an American
professional
golfer who plays on the U.S.-based Ladies
Professional Golf Association Tour. In her four seasons
as a professional, she has won 10 tournaments, including eight LPGA
Tour events. Creamer has been as high as No. 2 in the
Women's World Golf
Rankings.
An an amateur, Creamer won numerous junior golf titles, including
11
American Junior Golf
Association (AJGA) tournaments. Creamer joined the LPGA Tour in
the
2005 season, and her victory in
that year's
Sybase Classic made her
the LPGA's second-youngest event winner.
Early life and amateur career
Paula
Creamer was born in Mountain View, California
, and was raised in Pleasanton
, the only child of an airline pilot father and
stay-at-home mother. The family's home overlooked the first
tee of the Castlewood Country Club's
golf course. Creamer participated in
acrobatic dancing and
gymnastics during her childhood, and started
playing golf when she was 10 years old. At the age of 12, she won
13 consecutive regional junior events in
Northern California, and the following
year she became the top-ranked female junior golfer in the
state.
During Creamer's amateur career, she won 19 national tournaments,
including 11
American
Junior Golf Association events, and was named Player of the
Year by the AJGA in 2003. On two occasions (2002 and 2003), Creamer
played on the United States team in the
Junior Solheim Cup. She was a
semi-finalist in the 2003
U.S. Girls' Junior Championship
and
U.S. Women's Amateur
Championship, and reached the same stage of both events the
following year. In June 2004, Creamer placed second in the
LPGA Tour's
ShopRite LPGA Classic, finishing one
stroke behind
Cristie Kerr. Later that year, she tied for
13th in the
U.S. Women's Open and represented the
United States in the
Curtis Cup.
In December 2004, Creamer won the LPGA Tour Final Qualifying
Tournament by five strokes, thus gaining membership on the Tour for
the 2005 season. She turned professional immediately after the
event at the age of 18.
Professional career
2005–2007
Upon joining the LPGA Tour in
2005,
Creamer quickly became a top player.
On May 22, she holed a
17-foot birdie putt on the final hole
of the Sybase Classic in New Rochelle,
New York
to win by one stroke. Creamer became the
youngest winner of a multiple-round tournament in LPGA history.
(
Marlene Hagge won twice at a younger
age than Creamer.
Both wins came in 18-hole events.) On July
23, she claimed her second title of the year, winning the Evian Masters tournament in France
by an
eight-shot margin. She became the youngest and quickest
player to reach $1 million in LPGA career earnings. In August
Creamer won the NEC Open on the
Japan
LPGA tour, and added a victory at the
Masters GC Ladies tournament two months
later. Creamer earned a spot on the U.S.
Solheim Cup Team, becoming the youngest player
to do so. She helped the U.S. team win the cup, going 3–1–1 for the
competition. Creamer won the
LPGA
Rookie of the Year award for her season, in which she earned
over $1.5 million, second on the money list behind
Annika Sörenstam, and recorded eight
top-three finishes.
After her strong first-year performance, Creamer was second behind
Sörenstam in the inaugural
Women's World Golf Rankings,
which were released on February 20, 2006. Her
2006 season, however, was not as successful.
She did not win a tournament, and was hampered by wrist and foot
injuries during the year. Creamer still managed to earn over
$1 million and make the cut in all 27 LPGA tournaments in
which she played, compiling 14 top-10 finishes. Her best result of
the season was a tie for second at
The Mitchell
Company Tournament of Champions.
In
2007, Creamer rebounded with two
LPGA Tour titles. On February 17, she won her third career LPGA
title at the
SBS Open at Turtle
Bay, making a 40-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole of the final
round to defeat
Julieta Granada by
one shot. In November, Creamer won The Mitchell Company Tournament
of Champions, defeating
Birdie Kim by
eight strokes. She also played in her second Solheim Cup, leading
both sides in points earned. Creamer went unbeaten in five matches
as the U.S. team retained the cup. For theseason, she posted 13
top-10 finishes and earned over $1.3 million, third on the
money list.
2008–2009
In the
2008 season, Creamer won a
career-high four LPGA events and made more than $1.8 million,
the highest amount she has earned in a season. In February 2008,
she earned her fifth LPGA title at the
Fields Open in Hawaii, coming back
from a late two-shot deficit with birdies on the final three holes.
On April 27, Creamer came up short in a bid for her second win of
the year, losing in a sudden-death
playoff to Sörenstam at the
Stanford International Pro-Am.
The following week, Creamer bounced back at the
SemGroup Championship by defeating
Juli Inkster in a playoff. At the
U.S.
Women's
Open, she entered the final round one shot off the lead and in
good position to claim her first
major championship victory.
However, a
five-over-par 78 on the last
day dropped her into a tie for sixth. On July 10 at the
Jamie Farr Owens Corning
Classic, she shot an 11-under 60, just one stroke off of the
LPGA Tour record of 59 by Annika Sörenstam. She shot 60–65–70–73 to
beat
Nicole Castrale by two strokes.
Creamer's fourth title of 2008 came in October's
Samsung World Championship, where
she won by one stroke and became the first American with four or
more wins in an LPGA Tour season since Inkster had five tournament
victories in 1999. In November of that same year, Creamer teamed
with team International to defeat team Asia for the
Lexus Cup.
At the
LPGA Playoffs at the
ADT, the last event of the 2008 season, Creamer was
hospitalized with a stomach ailment, which was originally thought
to be
peritonitis. The ailment continued
to affect her in the opening few months of the 2009 season, with
doctors unable to make an exact diagnosis. At the
2009 U.S.
Women’s Open, held
at Saucon Valley
Country Club
, Creamer finished tied for sixth. In her
third
Solheim Cup, she was 3–1 as
the U.S. again won the competition. As of the end of the 2009
season Creamer is 13th on the
LPGA Carer Money List with
earnings of $6,968,600.
Personal life
In 2000,
Creamer moved to Bradenton, Florida
to attend the IMG Golf Academy
, where she graduated from the IMG-affiliated
Pendleton School the week after her
first LPGA victory. She relocated again in 2007, this time to
Isleworth
, a gated community in Windermere,
Florida
. As of 2009, she remains a resident of
Isleworth, where
No.
1 PGA golfer
Tiger Woods is among her neighbors.
Creamer has endorsement deals with many companies, including
TaylorMade-adidas,
Citizen Watch Co.,
NEC,
and the
Royal Bank of
Scotland Group.
Golf Digest
estimated her 2008 endorsement income to be $4.5 million, an
amount that is third-highest among female golfers. Her likeness has
been featured in
EA Sports'
Tiger Woods PGA Tour series of golf
video games.
Since 2005, Creamer has done charitable work for
The First Tee, an organization that benefits
junior golfers. She hosts the Paula 4 Kids Celebrity Event, an
annual outing that raises money for The First Tee of
Sarasota/Manatee. In addition, Creamer has appeared at youth golf
clinics and donated scholarships to the IMG Golf Academy.
Due to her fondness for wearing pink, Creamer's friend
Casey Wittenberg nicknamed her the "Pink
Panther." The sobriquet followed her when she turned pro. In
addition to her pink outfits, Creamer sports the color on several
of her golf accessories, including her
club grips and
golf bag. Creamer also uses a
Pink Panther club head cover, in a nod to her
nickname. She uses a pink golf ball during the last round of every
tournament provided by
Precept Golf,
one of her sponsors.
Professional wins (10)
LPGA Tour (8)
Other (2)
Results in LPGA majors
LA = Low Amateur
DNP = did not play
CUT = missed the half-way cut
WD = withdrew
"T" = tied
Green background for a win. Yellow background for a top-10
finish.
LPGA Tour career summary
| Year |
Events
played |
Cuts
made |
Wins |
2nds |
3rds |
Top
10s |
Best
finish |
Earnings ($) |
Rank |
Scoring
average |
Scoring
rank |
| 2003 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
T67 |
n/a |
n/a |
74.80 |
n/a |
| 2004 |
7 |
7 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
T2 |
n/a |
n/a |
71.42 |
n/a |
| 2005 |
25 |
24 |
2 |
4 |
2 |
11 |
1 |
1,531,780 |
2 |
70.98 |
3 |
| 2006 |
27 |
27 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
14 |
T2 |
1,076,163 |
11 |
70.62 |
6 |
| 2007 |
24 |
22 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
13 |
1 |
1,384,798 |
3 |
70.50 |
2 |
| 2008 |
26 |
26 |
4 |
1 |
2 |
15 |
1 |
1,823,992 |
2 |
70.56 |
3 |
| 2009 |
21 |
17 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
2 |
1,151,864 |
9 |
70.62 |
10 |
Team appearances
Amateur
Professional
- Solheim Cup (representing the United
States): 2005 (winners), 2007 (winners), 2009 (winners)
- Lexus Cup (representing International
team): 2005 (winners), 2006, 2008 (winners)
- Women's World Cup of
Golf (representing the United States): 2006
Solheim Cup Record
Awards
References
External links
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