Creamer Is Sitting Pretty in Pink

WILLIAMSBURG, May 11 -- As she stepped to the first tee at Kingsmill's River Course Thursday, Paula Creamer's preference for all things pink included: a warmup jacket, an ankle bracelet, socks, ponytail holder, driver-head cover, golf bag, grips on her irons and a shaft on her driver. Then again, Creamer also would like to see a bit more red in her life these heady days, specifically those red under-par numbers for birdies and eagles posted on scoreboards all around the LPGA Tour.

Creamer, last year's runaway rookie of the year with two LPGA victories and $1.53 million in earnings, went off Thursday in the Michelob Ultra Championship in pursuit of her first title in what so far has been a somewhat frustrating sophomore season. Never mind that she's 13th on the money list, has five top 15 finishes and hasn't missed a cut in eight starts. The 19-year-old California native is still not especially satisfied with her start to the season, though she said this week her game is starting to come around.

That emergence was evident early Thursday, when Creamer hit an 8-iron from 153 yards out in the fairway into the cup for an eagle on her second hole. By the time this wind-swept first round had ended, she had birdied her last hole to post a 1-under 70 that left her four shots behind 18-hole leader Karrie Webb (66), who chipped in from 50 feet for one of her eight birdies and sank a 45-foot putt for another.

"So far this year, I haven't met my expectations," Creamer said. "But I'm just trying to stay patient and not get ahead of myself and just go out there, relax and have fun, let all the hard work I've done pay off."

Some of the hardest work came during ages 14 through 17, when Creamer and her parents, Paul and Karen, moved from Pleasanton, Calif., to Bradenton, Fla., so she could attend the David Leadbetter Golf Academy. Her father, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a commercial airline pilot, said his only child, who started playing golf at age 10, has always been a fine athlete and a fierce competitor.

"We would watch Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley go at it on TV," her father said. "I told her they would tear each other's heart out on the basketball court, and then they'd go out to dinner afterward and laugh about it. She's like that when she's inside the ropes. When she's playing, she wants to tear your heart out, but when it's over, she knows she also has to put it back in place. She's just a great kid."

Creamer's penchant for pink led one of her Leadbetter classmates, Casey Wittenberg, now a Nationwide Tour player, to label her the "Pink Panther" when she was 14. She has several licensing deals with Japanese companies to produce items under that moniker, with more contracts likely on the way if she stays at the highest level of her game.

There's little reason to believe she won't. She had a dominating junior career, winning 11 American Junior Golf Association events, was a semifinalist in 2003 and 2004 in the U.S. Women's Amateur and the U.S. Junior Girls and was a member of the victorious 2004 Curtis Cup team.

While still a 17-year-old amateur, she won the 2004 LPGA Qualifying tournament by five shots and turned pro immediately.

Four days before her high school graduation last year, she made a 17-foot putt on the final hole to win the Sybase Classic in New Rochelle, N.Y. and became the youngest winner of a multi-round tournament in LPGA history. Two months later, she won the Evian Masters in France by eight shots, becoming the youngest woman to reach $1 million in LPGA career earnings. She finished a spectacular season by leading the U.S. to victory over Europe in the Solheim Cup last fall, posting the best record (3-1-1) and drubbing English veteran Laura Davies, 7 and 5, in singles. She shot a 30 on the front nine and had seven birdies in 12 holes, both Solheim records.

Asked if she could have imagined being this successful this soon, Creamer smiled and said: "My expectations are very high, definitely. I feel that if I don't achieve what I want to achieve, then I basically have not necessarily failed, but I haven't proven anything to myself. You know I work really hard at it. I wouldn't expect anything other than to be the best."

Among the current crop of high-profile young players, she's hardly alone in setting such lofty goals. Her most natural rival likely will be 16-year-old Michelle Wie, another prodigy who turned pro last October but is not a full-time member of the LPGA. Other promising young players include two American rookies, 17-year-old Morgan Pressel and 20-year-old Brittany Lang, who tied for second at last year's U.S. Women's Open in Denver as amateurs.