Creamer Rises to the Top

2010 U.S. Women’s Open Recap
Winner: Paula Creamer
Score: 3 under, 281 (72, 70, 70, 69)
Quote: “I believed I could do this.”
Fact: She didn’t watch leaderboards.
Thought: Mental toughness wins majors.

PAULA CREAMER IS A major champion. What so many have long expected since the talented California native turned professional five years ago finally came to pass today under blue skies at Oakmont Country Club in western Pennsylvania. She is only 23, but doesn’t it seem that Paula has been grinding for that first major victory for quite a while?

Count me among those who were thoroughly impressed by Creamer’s performance. I know Oakmont was playing soft after the heavy rain on Friday. It’s still Oakmont, though. Playing through pain in the aftermath of surgery to her left thumb, Paula was the only player in red numbers for 72 holes, shooting 3-under par to win by four strokes over Na Yeon Choi and Suzanne Pettersen. She saved her best round for last, a 2-under 69.

Few players have a four-shot cushion when they play the final hole of a U.S. Open (a dream scenario and then you wake up), but apparently Creamer didn’t know it. Paula said afterwards that she didn’t look at a leaderboard until the 18th green.

“That was a goal of mine,” she said, “to just go and play the golf course, and if somebody played awesome, then somebody did. I didn’t want to change my game plan.”

How do you explain a first major after so much adversity and such a long layoff? Paula was obviously not at anywhere near her best physically—she could only hit 40 balls in warm up, winced in pain on the course, and told the press she was about 60 percent. She had only played four events coming into the national championship, missing the cut last week at the Jamie Farr Classic.

“It just shows,” Paula said, “how much the mental side of golf can really take over.”

There’s also the experience and maturity Creamer gained from disappointments at the last two U.S. Women’s Opens at Interlachen and Saucon Valley. And there’s the putting, which this time was superb on Oakmont’s crazy fast and undulating greens.

Because of Paula’s extreme popularity—and because an American has won the U.S. Women’s Open—this is bound to be a huge lift for women’s golf and the LPGA Tour. With Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa gone, the game needs star power, and Paula has it in mega-wattage. Now she also has her first of what may be many majors.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Keith Allison/Flickr)

Oakmont Is Cage Fighting in Fashionable Clothing

THE USGA’S COURSE SETUP MAN Mike Davis is “giddy” about course conditions at Oakmont Country Club heading into this week’s U.S. Women’s Open near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Giddy, I tell you.

“I am truly giddy the whole week that I’m here. It’s just so good,” Davis said at USGA.org. “In fact, it’s perfect [and] it’s been that way the last five days we’ve been here.”

This might not be good news for the women who must actually play Oakmont for 72 holes over four days. When the USGA man declares that Oakmont is a firm and fast test for the world’s best female golfers, you just know there’s going to be trouble—and lots of it. Some are predicting scores in the 90s and a cut at 12-over par.

Here’s what I know about Oakmont after watching the boys play it since the late 20th century: It will seriously mess you up. It will blacken your eye and bloody your nose. It will spit in your face and kick you in the groin. It will beat you up, take your lunch money and steal your identity. Oakmont is cage fighting in fashionable clothing.

If you have a bag and 14 sticks, Oakmont doesn’t like you. If you come near it, it will try to destroy you. Oakmont is Lee Van Cleef in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales. Oakmont is Alien, The Terminator and Predator.

Oakmont does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, or political beliefs. Man, woman, child—Oakmont doesn’t care. It whips all comers.

If you complain, whine, or cry about it, Oakmont gets stronger. If you talk to yourself, toss your club in disgust, or berate your caddie, Oakmont gets stronger. When—not if—when you make bogeys, double bogeys and “others,” Oakmont gets stronger.

Oakmont is permanently in a surly mood, and has been dating back to 1973 (if not longer). That’s when golden boy Johnny Miller slipped by Oakmont without so much as a tear in his plaid slacks or a scuff on his red, white and blue patent leather golf shoes. Johnny walked away with a 63 and the U.S. Open trophy, and he’s been reminding people about it for the last 37 years. Oakmont has been taking it out on golfers just as long.

Godspeed, ladies.

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: StonehouseGolf/Flickr)