For Creamer, fourth victory of the year hits home
Paula Creamer won by a stroke at Half Moon Bay Golf Links. Creamer learned to golf about an hour’s drive from the course. (Eric Risberg/Associated Press)
By KAREN CROUSE
The New York Times
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (Oct. 5) — Finally, her time had arrived. When at long last Paula Creamer’s wait to win as a pro in the Bay Area was over, she slipped the watch with the diamond-encrusted face off her left wrist and tossed it to a woman in the grandstand behind the 18th green at the Ocean Course at Half Moon Bay Golf Links.
Creamer, who grew up in nearby Pleasanton, made a tricky 4-foot par putt on the 72nd hole Sunday to ice a one-stroke victory over Song-Hee Kim in the Samsung World Championship. She closed with a three-under-par 69 for a four-day total of nine-under 279. It was Creamer’s fourth victory of the year, her eighth since she turned pro out of high school in 2005 and her first in Northern California.
After hugging her caddie, Colin Cann, Creamer threw her watch into the crowd, something she had imagined doing for a while, although not nearly as long as she had pictured winning as a pro in front of the friends and neighbors who have followed her career.
“This means a lot,” Creamer said of the victory. “I put so much pressure on myself every time I come here and to finally have one, it really feels good.”
With the win, the 22-year-old Creamer ended the reign of the two-time defending champion Lorena Ochoa of Mexico. Ochoa carded a 69 to finish two strokes back in a tie for third with Suzann Pettersen of Norway and the Americans Juli Inkster and Angela Stanford.
Ochoa, a seven-time winner this year, knows what it is like to play in front of adoring crowds. She attracts a large Latino following wherever she plays but particularly in tournaments on the West Coast. Her gallery during the week included several people waving Mexican flags, including a nun. Her fans’ prayers went unanswered as Ochoa’s round was derailed by consecutive bogeys on Nos. 4 and 5.
“It didn’t happen for me,” Ochoa said, “but I tried my best.”
The invitational, featuring 20 of the world’s top players, was held about an hour’s drive from where Creamer learned to golf. The junior circuit regularly took her up and down the northern California coast, until her ambition steered her to a golf academy in Bradenton, Fla., for high school.
Creamer makes her home in Orlando, Fla., so when business brings her back to the Bay Area, she is besieged by well-wishers. During her round, she could not walk 50 yards without hearing somebody shout, “Go Pleasanton!”
Every year, Creamer has played in the tour stop at Danville, which starts this week and is her old stamping ground. She never has recorded a top-10 finish there, but she is hardly the only golfer who has struggled to succeed close to home. Tiger Woods, who grew up in Southern California, has never won at Riviera in Los Angeles.
“It’s hard coming to your hometown,” Creamer said, adding, “I’m trying too hard, I want to win so badly especially for everybody.”
The pressure appeared to be getting the best of Creamer during the second round, when she exchanged harsh words with her caddie, an exchange that was caught on camera. After Creamer’s tempest, all the tension she had been feeling dissipated and her demeanor was sunny during the weekend.
She did not make a bogey over the final 36 holes. Before the awards ceremony, she sought out her father, Paul, who was carrying an extra timepiece from one of her sponsors in his pocket. Creamer asked her father to carry the extra watch because she had a feeling, the way she was putting, that her time to win in Northern California was at hand.
Before Sunday, she had won five of nine events when she held at least a share of the lead going into the final round. No sooner had she left the awards presentation than people started talking to her about notching back-to-back titles.
“That’s even more pressure,” she said, laughing.