paula creamer

Paula Creamer was born on August 5, 1986, in Mountain View, California. She began playing golf when she was 10 and honed her skills on the amateur circuit. During her career as a junior, she won the American Junior Golf Association title on 11 occasions, and a total of 19 national amateur tournaments overall. In 2002, at the age of 15, she was a member of the winning U. S. team at the PING Junior Solheim Cup. That same year, she finished a joint sixth in the combined boys and girls' final totals, and represented the United States at the R&A Junior Open at Royal Musselburgh.

In 2003, 16-year-old Paula became a semi-finalist at both the U.S. Girls' and the U.S. Women's Amateur Championships. She played on the victorious U.S. Spirit Team, one of only two high school juniors to make the cut. She also represented her country in the Curtis Cup and Junior Solheim Cup tournaments. Paula was named the AJGA Player of the Year for 2003, as well as Golfweek's and Golf Digest's Junior of the Year, titles she'd claim again the following year.

Paula held on to her position as top-ranked female amateur in 2004. She repeated her previous year's status as a semi-finalist at both the U.S. Women's Amateur and the Junior Girls' Championships, was a member of the victorious Curtis Cup Team and represented the U. S. at the World Amateur Team Championships. Furthermore, she finished 13th at the Wegmans Rochester LPGA, 18th at the Wendy's Championship for Children, and tied for 18th at the BMO Financial Group Canadian Women's Open.

Paula earned the opportunity to join the 2005 LPGA tour after her five-shot win at the 2004 LPGA Tour Qualifying School. The victory made her the first amateur and the youngest player ever to win the event, and she promptly turned professional after finishing the final round. On May 22, 2005, she earned her first LPGA tournament victory, winning the Sybase Classic in New Rochelle, New York. A couple of months shy of her 19th birthday, Creamer became the second-youngest first-time LPGA champ in history.

Just days after her triumph at New Rochelle, Paula graduated from Pendleton High School in Bradenton, Florida. In July of 2005, Paula traveled to Europe, where she was victorious at the Evian Masters tournament in France. She next won the NEC Open and the Masters GC Ladies Classic, both part of the Japanese LPGA tour. In August, she became the youngest player and the first tour rookie ever to join the Solheim Cup Team.