Paula Creamer: Potential in Pink

Editor’s Note: Lisa D. Mickey is the director of communications for the Futures Golf Tour and a longtime member of the national golf media. For more information, about the Futures Tour, contact lisa@futurestour.com or visit futurestour.com.
 
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Paula Creamer whipped the field by five shots to earn her tour card at last week’s LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament in Daytona Beach, Fla. At age 18, she’s young and poised. Always sporting her favorite color, pretty in pink, she is. Potent as a pro, she will become.
 
This is the same Northern California teen who hones her strokes at the David Leadbetter Academy in Bradenton, Fla., a training ground for stars on the rise. And this is the same quiet giant killer who has a classy Chris Evert-like internal drive, staring down bad shots and internalizing any error in a slow burn that dissipates before becoming destructive.
 
As an amateur, Creamer has already made established professionals look past their prime. She tied for second earlier this year at the ShopRite LPGA Classic. She made every tournament cut in the six LPGA events she played this summer and tied for 13th and low-amateur honors at this year’s U.S. Women’s Open with fellow U.S. Curtis Cup team member Michelle Wie. At the Open, Wie played in the glaring spotlight; Creamer quietly went about her work on the golf course without the same massive galleries that trailed her amateur pal.
 
By summer’s end, Creamer would have earned a healthy six-figure salary if only her amateur status would have allowed a payday. But her biggest payoff was satisfaction and self-assurance that the largest decision of her young life was finally the right decision, at last. And while Creamer did not accept her $6,000 prize for besting the field at 11-under-par 349 in the 90-hole marathon, she accepted the knowledge that her game is now ready to erase the “a” behind her name. She arrived in Daytona as an amateur and departed as the professional she has always aspired to be.
 
“I’m not really surprised because I came into this tournament wanting to win,” said Creamer, who caught herself and resisted the temptation to dance to “Jingle Bell Rock” blaring from the P.A. system hiding in the palm trees at LPGA International last Sunday afternoon. “It’s the end and it’s a new beginning and I’m looking forward to what’s going to happen next year.”
 
Creamer used the Futures Tour Qualifying Tournament in early November as a tune-up for LPGA Q-School. She tied for medalist honors at that event with another teen, Brittany Lincicome, topping a whopping field of 277 players.
 
“That helped me a lot because it showed me that I needed to tighten things up and work on my short game,” said Creamer.