Home of the Brave: Creamer Takes First Major in Open at Oakmont

Paula Creamer had hit her approach shot safely on the 18^th and final green of Oakmont Country Club.  With four shots to spare against par, Creamer could take five putts from forty feet to win the United States Women's Open - the championship that matters most to female professional golfers of any nationality.  Though it certainly was not out of the realm of possibility on the uber demanding, endlessly undulating greens of Oakmont, the championship was hers.

The crowd gathered around the last hole, there to greet the victor five and six deep in places, struck up a rousing ovation for Creamer.  Morgan Pressel and Meaghan Francella - friends of Creamer's - plunked themselves down inside the ropes to greet her and struck up a small but spirited "U! S! A!" chant, overheard and joined in by some of the crowd near them.

The party had already begun before Creamer had sank the final putt.  It was difficult for the fans to contain themselves with glee, but managed a hushed whisper for Creamer's approach putt.  For a short second, it looked like the putt might find the bottom of the cup.  It slid by just two and a half feet.  Now the celebration was guaranteed.

Her playing partners holed out to clear the stage.  With girls held up by their fathers to spot a glimpse of the finale, Creamer holed the winning putt.  As the ball disappeared in the ground, Creamer dropped her putter - a traditional putter new in the bag this week - to the ground and covered her mouth with both hands.  It finally hit her.

She had made up for the missed cut last week in Ohio.  She had silenced the critics.  Paula Creamer had finally won her national championship by four shots.

"I always think an American should be on this U.S. Open trophy," Creamer later said expressing the pride that is evident in her nearly flawless Solheim Cup record. " It is the U.S. Open, so I do think that that's an important thing."

It all seemed to happen so quickly, though there was so much more to her championship week than that.  The crowds rose and applauded Creamer as she beamed and hugged and smiled and slapped hands on her way to the clubhouse to sign her scorecard. 

Turning the corner out of the public eye, Creamer wiped tears away from her face, her mascara running halfway down her face.  She embraced her mom.  Her caddie Colin hugged her mom.  It looked as though every USGA staff member wanted to hug her.  An American had finally broken what seemed like a lengthy drought at the national championship.

One USGA senior staffer told me, "This is just what we needed."

Creamer is the first American champion at the Open since '07 when Cristie Kerr broke through at Pine Needles.  Korean players had won the  prior two years.  Prior to Kerr, the last American to win was Meg Mallon - who, perhaps appropriately, withdrew and retired from professional golf before the tournament began.  Mallon said she had lost the fire to compete and it was time to leave it to players that had the zest to win - players like Paula Creamer.

Long a fan favorite, the 24 year old spent several minutes signing autographs before speaking with the media.  Sitting down to answer questions, Creamer was announced as the 2010 US Women's Open champion.  Creamer sunk her face in her left hand, still incredulous that descriptive phrase her name went in order.

The final round was no coronation.  Hardly.  Creamer began the final round just after 12:15 and faced nearly six hours of true examination.  It began in her head, where she remembered everything that had gone wrong in the past at the Open - the 3^rd round 79 at Saucon Valley, the final round 78 at Interlachen (headline: "Paula Creamer loses it"), another 79 on the last day at Cherry Hills.

‘I think [this] happened because of all what's happened in the past at major championships," she said.  "I've always remembered, you know, what has happened in the past, and I've tried to recognize it when it's happening in the present."

The present was the first hole - the toughest all week with a diabolical pin on Sunday.  Creamer took it to the course and the field early with par, which was practically a birdie.  That, though, was not the game plan.  Aggression could never be the game plan at Oakmont.

"I want to be aggressive.  I'm an aggressive player just naturally. ... Being super‑aggressive has kind of hurt me in the past.

"Here just the punishment is just so much worse when you are more aggressive."

It truly was one hole at a time - from the start. "[My caddy Corey and I] played the first hole and we said, ‘Okay, 17 more.  16 more.  15 more.'"

The plan, though, looked like it might lead to ruin on the front side.  Mike Davis and the USGA sought to make scoring possible on the front nine on Sunday.  With five of the nine easiest holes situated sixth through ninth in the Oakmont gauntlet, Creamer had earlier challengers. 

At the par 5 fourth, Creamer opted to play it as a three shot hole by hitting four-rescue off of the tee.  It led to an inexplicable bogey considering the momentum and consistency she had cultivated throughout the weekend.  But she quickly bounced back.  Her approach to the short yet treacherous fifth was a great bounce back after the disappointment on four.  She made birdie there to make up for the prior hole's miscue.  Little did she know that Suzann Pettersen missed a short birdie putt of her own on that hole just minutes beforehand that would have cut Creamer's lead to a single shot.

Pettersen made par at six, but Creamer struggled off of the tee on that hole on Sunday.  Her tee shot was left and long, bunkered in a pot of sand more reminiscent of St. Andrews than western Pennsylvania.  Creamer extricated herself well and made an impressive and potent up-and-down to save par.

Creamer came to the eighth, facing the longest par three test this Open had to offer.  Now, though, her new challenger was Na Yeon Choi.  Choi went out in 31 with an emphatic eagle at the ninth.  Not only did Creamer have to worry about the Choi rally, but so did Johnny Miller and his precious 63 from 1974.  Paula calmly made par on eight, then took advantage of the par 5 ninth - shortened some thirty yards from the day prior, she made a routine birdie.  Now -2 for the championship, her lead and the title seemed rather secure.

Three holes later, Creamer's armor had a chink in it.  More specifically, it was her thumb.  Creamer miscued off of the par 5 tee into a fairway bunker so deep that she could only advance the ball some forty yards out of it, if that.  Creamer appeared to wince in pain, perhaps enhanced by knowing a bigger number was now possible.  However, she minimized the damage and escaped in bogey.

Thirteen was the money hole.  If Creamer could right the ship and get through this par 3, she knew the tournament was almost assured to her. 

"[After 13], there are some difficult holes, but I thought if I could maybe go around 1‑under, I might have a good chance of pulling it out," she recalled.

With a par at 13, she was even on the round.  Her lead was smaller and she was one stroke off of her target, but things were looking good.  Bouncing back after a bogey was important to Creamer from as far back as she can remember.

"[M]y dad and I, when I was younger, have always paid a pretty good amount of respect to bouncing back. 

"For me, that's just something I've always done, and in this situation it makes it so much sweeter.  I've practiced it over and over the last several years, and that's something that I kind of know I can rely on."

The assurance from the par at 13 led Creamer into the next two holes.  Fourteen was short all week, but the pin was accessible though challenging on Sunday.  Creamer knew this was an opportunity to be aggressive and let her true self show.   She sank a birdie putt to get back to red figures for the day.

Creamer's approach to putting throughout the week really was on display at that hole.

"Normally you want to go in the back of the hole because the greens aren't 14 on the Stimpmeter. We really focused on dying putts into the hole, and I think we got in a good rhythm.  It's confidence.  You know, you make one, there's no reason why you can't make two."

She did just that on the fifteenth.  The second largest par four on the course yielded nine birdies on the day.  Creamer made certain she was part of that group with a killer approach that sealed the win.  As Creamer hit her approach, crowds flanking parts of 14, 15, 17, and 18 all turned and applauded.  A few "Go Paula!" cheers echoed through the last corner of Oakmont's puzzle.

Still, it was not clear to Creamer just how well off she was when she arrived to seventeen.  Caddy Colin Cann suggested that she lay up on the 228 yard par 4 with a five-iron.  It was a shot they had not even considered all week.

"I kind of had a feeling on 17 that I had a couple‑shot lead, because that was that front box, and I said I would always hit driver off that front box, and today I laid up.  Colin was kind of like, you know, Well, you can lay up, 5‑iron.  I'm like, What?  What do you mean?

"The front box I've always hit driver.  I hit driver, you know, this morning.  I hit driver yesterday off that box," Creamer explained. 

She told Cann, "'Okay, well, I'm trusting you with this layup here off the tee. ‘"

Her lay-up to 75 yards or so left her with a shot that made her uncomfortable. "[I]t's one of the hardest wedge shots in golf I think, or that I've ever had to play," she said but executed well to give herself a par, a four shot lead on the last, and just 450 yards from the trophy.

Which brings it all back to the scene at 18.  Standing there, taking in the scene in the exact opposite angle as the new champion, her father stood next to me for the final putt.  Despite being fairly tall, Mr. Creamer couldn't see his daughter's final distance.  The joy on his face, though, when she made the putt made it clear he knew what had happened.

Paula's father - a pilot - spent twelve years of his life in Butler, Penn., not too far from the golf club.  His daughter researched, discovered, and attended David Leadbetter's Bradenton Academy to foster a better opportunity at golf success.  The circle of life returned to his home.

"I think he liked it, too, being from here," Creamer said with a smile.

Bizarrely enough, Creamer seemed to have believed from the start that despite being a self-described 60% throughout the week that this might have been her time.

"[I] was funny, because we have had a lot of just little signs, you know, this week where, you know, we think might happen or could this be the week," she hinted.  Repeatedly, Creamer made reference to her credo that things happen for a reason.  The thumb injury, the prior major heartache, everything.  All for a reason all too clear now.

At the onset of the week, Creamer asked Arnold Palmer for his advice on how to survive Oakmont.

"Don't three putt and keep your head down," the King said.  Creamer obliged as best she could.  A few three putts, yes, but kept in the moment until the moment was finally hers to own.

With a shiny new trophy - the oldest in women's golf, littered with legendary names -  to stare at and the better part of a million dollars in her pocket, Creamer can finally let herself indulge in two gifts for the achievement.  One is a new purse, a Birkin bag. 

The other? Skydiving.  Lost up in Cloud Nine, she almost forgot about that self-promise until asked.

"[S]kydiving was something, too.  That's right.  If I won my first major we were gonna go skydiving."

Excuse Creamer if it takes her a little while - the rest of her life, even - to come off of this high.  No rush from jumping out of a plane could replicate the crazy, thrilling, and satisfying journey of winning the National Open through 72 grueling holes.