Paula Creamer (born August 5, 1986) is an American professional golfer who plays on the U.S.-based Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour. As a professional, she has won 11 tournaments, including 9 LPGA Tour events. Creamer has been as high as number 2 in the Women’s World Golf Rankings. She is the current U.S. Open champion, and is undefeated in three years of singles play in the Solheim Cup.
- Paula Creamer
As 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.
Full name: Paula Creamer
Nickname: The Pink Panther
Born: August 5, 1986 / Mountain View, California
Height: 5 ft 9 in
Nationality: United States
Residence: Windermere, Florida
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- Paula Creamer
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- Paula Creamer
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- Paula Creamer
Paula Creamer wins the 2010 Woman’s US Open – First Major Video
Early life and amateur career: 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: 2008–2010 – 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. Creamer finished 10th on the 2009 LPGA money list with earnings of over $1.1 million. Her highest finishes during the season were a pair of second-place results, at the LPGA Corning Classic and Lorena Ochoa Invitational. As of the end of the 2009 season Creamer was 13th on the all-time LPGA Career Money List with earnings of $6,968,600.
Creamer withdrew from the first event of the 2010 season with a left thumb injury, which she had first sustained in June 2009 at the Wegmans LPGA tournament. The injury, later diagnosed as a hyperextended metacarpophalangeal joint caused by stretched ligaments, required surgery in March. In her return event, the ShopRite LPGA Classic, Creamer finished in seventh place at 10-under-par.
On July 11, 2010, in her fourth tournament after returning from her thumb surgery, Creamer won the U.S. Women’s Open. She was the only golfer under par for the tournament, with a score of 3-under-par, four strokes ahead of Suzann Pettersen and Na Yeon Choi. It was the first victory in a major in Creamer’s career.