Creamer of the Crop

The kids, for the moment, are back in school.

Michelle Wie, poised to turn pro before she plays in the LPGA’s Samsung World Championship in October at Palm Desert, is a 15-year-old junior at Punahou School in Honolulu -- albeit the only one who flirted with making the cut at a PGA Tour event before appearing on “Late Show with David Letterman” in a slinky green spaghetti-strapped top.

Morgan Pressel, whose summer vacation might have included hoisting the women’s U.S. Open trophy if not for Birdie Kim’s miracle bunker shot on the final hole, is a 17-year-old senior at Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, Fla. -- and yes, she’s on the golf team, although she skipped class last week to play in the LPGA’s sectional qualifying tournament in Rancho Mirage, the first step toward earning her tour card before her 18th birthday in May.

Yet after a girl-power summer like golf has never seen, the teenager at the head of the class when the LPGA Tour stops in Rancho Palos Verdes this week for the Office Depot Championship at Trump National Golf Club is one who has actually graduated from high school -- rookie Paula Creamer, all of 19 and second to Annika Sorenstam on the LPGA money list with $1,332,042 in earnings.

“I think Paula Creamer has pretty much overshadowed everyone with what she has done,” said Nancy Lopez, captain of the U.S. team that won the Solheim Cup this month in a performance led by Creamer, who turned heads when she crushed Laura Davies, 7 and 5.

Wie -- who would have earned $663,363 this year if she had been a professional -- is expected to soon sign endorsement deals worth perhaps $8 million to $12 million and continue to play LPGA and PGA Tour events on sponsors’ exemptions until she turns 18 or is granted a waiver of the age requirement.

For now, though, the scoreboard leader is Creamer, with two victories and nine top-10 finishes, while missing only one cut in 20 events her rookie year.

Creamer became the youngest player in LPGA history to win a multiple-round tournament, the Sybase Classic in May at 18 years 8 months -- four days before she graduated from the Pendleton School in Bradenton, Fla.

She won again in July, at the Evian Masters in France, where Wie tied for second, eight strokes behind.

To Lopez, there’s something familiar about the gregarious, yet determined, Creamer.

“Watching Paula, she reminds me a lot of myself. Very aggressive, shoots for the pins, and her putts go in with a lot of speed -- I never left anything short,” said Lopez, who turned pro at 19 in 1977 and won nine tournaments, five in succession, as an LPGA rookie in 1978.

At the Solheim Cup, Creamer all but guaranteed a victory, then backed it up and played a key role in the post-victory celebration too.

“Everybody wants to go drink, and I’m, ‘Here, designated driver!’ ” Creamer said before her next tournament.

“I guess there’s a lot of things that I can’t do,” she said.

Case in point: Creamer’s parents, Paul and Karen, travel with her on tour -- in part because Paula isn’t old enough to rent a car.

“She’s a child off the golf course and a woman on it,” Lopez said.

She is one of many.

At the women’s U.S. Open in June, there were 17 teenagers in the field, 12 of them amateurs, among them Wie, Pressel, Jane Park of Rancho Cucamonga and Amie Cochran and Angela Park, both of Torrance.

These days, women’s golf coaches at schools such as Arizona and Duke have more in common with Lute Olson and Mike Krzyzewski than they would like.

Arizona lost Sorenstam to pro golf after two seasons in 1992 and since then has lost Natalie Gulbis, Lorena Ochoa and Erica Blasberg before their eligibility expired.

At Duke, Beth Bauer and Brittany Lang turned pro early -- Lang this summer, after tying for second at the U.S. Open with Pressel.

Then Pressel, an A student who had committed to Duke, gave women’s Coach Dan Brooks a Shaun Livingston moment when she announced plans to turn pro before she set foot on campus.

It has gotten to the point that some people are surprised that Jane Park, 18, who defeated Creamer in the semifinals of the women’s U.S. Amateur in 2003 and won the title in 2004, is a freshman at UCLA instead of taking a crack at Q-school.

“I’m taking biology, English and music appreciation,” she said. “I think I just needed to do my own thing for a little bit. I’ve been on such a set schedule for a long, long time.”

It isn’t only college golf that has changed.

Consider the Torrance High girls’ team.

Angela Park, a senior, was a semifinalist at the U.S. Women’s Amateur last month at 16, and freshman Jane Rah reached the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links in July at 14.

“All the young kids are getting good. Golf is getting bigger and there are a lot of junior programs out there,” said Rah, a former figure skater whose father was inspired by the success of Se Ri Pak, the runaway rookie of the year when she won two majors in 1998.

“She was the first Korean star, and he thought maybe I could do it too,” Rah said.

Some other young players cite Sorenstam as their inspiration. But besides role models, the explosion of young talent in women’s golf is a reflection of advances in the equipment and instruction available to young players, as well as increased emphasis on conditioning and weight training and numerous competitive opportunities, such as American Junior Golf Assn. events, USGA competitions and even sponsors’ exemptions to LPGA tournaments.

Amy Alcott, who was the LPGA rookie of the year at 19 in 1975 and is in the field for the Office Depot event, believes high school and college golf options engendered by Title IX have played a crucial role for women.

“I was right out of Palisades High School, and there were no college opportunities for me, other than to go to Dartmouth and play with the boys,” she said.

“I was quoted as saying I wanted to be the best woman golfer in the world, and I was called cocky, brash and arrogant. Now they call you confident.”

Yet the question remains: Why are there more young girls able to compete with adult women than there are boys who can compete with men?

Even Tiger Woods didn’t play in his first PGA Tour tournament until he was 16, when he competed in the 1992 Nissan Los Angeles Open. Wie, who turns 16 Oct. 11, has appeared in three.

Woods, who won three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles, didn’t make the cut in a major until he was 19. Pressel came close to winning the women’s U.S. Open this year at 17 and Wie was second to Sorenstam in the LPGA Championship.

“Girls mature faster,” said Pressel, who won the U.S. Women’s Amateur last month. “Your body develops by the time you’re 16. With guys, it’s later. I don’t think it’s only the maturity of being big, but emotional maturity and mental maturity too.”

Then, there is tour depth. There are far fewer women in the U.S. who play golf at any level than men.

On tour, only 25 LPGA players average 72 or better, whereas 181 men do.

For more of the young phenoms to play on tour, the LPGA would have to continue to relax its minimum-age rule. Though former commissioner Ty Votaw granted an exception that allowed Aree Song to play at 17 in 2004, when Pressel made the same request, he straddled the fence, saying she could compete in Q-school this fall but could not join the tour until her 18th birthday May 23.

Votaw denied similar requests by somewhat less-qualified In-Bee Park, 17, of Las Vegas, and little-known Carmen Bandea, 15, of Atlanta.

Arriving on tour as an already-accomplished player is no guarantee of immediate success.

Cristie Kerr was a star junior player who turned professional out of high school and joined the tour in 1997 but didn’t win a tournament until 2002.

Overweight and shunned by players who considered her cocky, Kerr lost 50 pounds and became a glamour figure who now has won five times in the last two seasons and is third on the money list, behind Sorenstam and Creamer.

“I know how hard it was,” said Kerr, who mentors some of the younger players, including Gulbis. “My life and my story, it was a journey for me, physically and mentally, learning how to win. You can’t tell anybody how to win. Those are things you have to figure out yourself.”

For women’s golf to grow in popularity, the LPGA is eager for its own version of Tiger Woods. Wie would seem perfect, but some in the LPGA are wary of her goals of competing in the Masters and on the PGA Tour.

Rivalries along the lines of the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird clashes that fueled the NBA’s growth would be sufficient. Those seem to be germinating, though it might end up being Wie against the world.

Pressel calls Wie’s forays into the PGA “a marketing gig” and questions whether Wie has proved that she can win on the LPGA Tour.

“She’s proven she can’t win in pressure situations going into the final round,” Pressel said, referring to Wie’s collapse at the U.S. Open after sharing the lead with Pressel and another player after three rounds.

“The biggest tournament in women’s golf, she shoots 82,” Pressel said. “She falters at the end.”

Creamer defers questions about Wie with answers about wanting to be No. 1 in the LPGA.

“I think that, definitely, the media makes more of it, but she’s not a professional yet,” Creamer said. “So maybe when that starts happening, and she plays professional on the tour. But right now, I definitely see Annika.”

Lopez, the Hall of Famer and Solheim Cup captain, is just glad to see red, white and blue again after an era when Sorenstam, a Swede, and a wave of talented Asian players overshadowed players from the U.S.

“For so long, we were, like, where are the American players? That question was asked many times,” Lopez said.

“Now we know. They were all in high school or junior high.”