Paula Creamer returns to LPGA Classic feeling her game is close to where she wants it to be

GALLOWAY, N.J. – It’s hard to believe that 15 years have passed since Paula Creamer played in her first ShopRite LPGA Classic at the age of 17 and came within a missed birdie putt at the final hole from being the youngest player to win an LPGA event at that time.

She earned her tour card the next year and became the next phenom. She won her first tournament four days before graduating from high school and eight more in the next six years, including the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open. With her talent and her outgoing personality with the galleries, she became one of the game’s most popular players.

But the last few years haven’t been as productive for Creamer. She is winless since 2014 and her last top-10 finish was a tie for seventh in 2017 at ShopRite.

However, she returns to the Jersey Shore and the Bay Course at Seaview this weekend with a new grip that places less pressure on her oft-injured left wrist, and with an overall game that she thinks is close to where she feels it should be.

“Playing bad golf is very difficult,” Creamer said Thursday. “It’s not easy. I never really experienced that for quite a while in my career. The last four years have really been where I’ve looked at my golf and have just been like, ‘What’s going on here?’

“It’s very easy to get down on yourself. You look at yourself in the mirror and you know you can do something and there’s just something kind of getting in the way. But my team, my caddie, my family, everybody, they’ve just been really, really positive. That’s something that you can’t ever replace. It’s just something that outweighs everything, it really does.

Creamer surpassed the $12 million mark in career earnings this year, ranking her 10th in the LPGA. But after missing time early in the 2019 season when pain in her wrist flared up, she has made the cut in just three of eight tournaments.

She said she was working to take ownership of her grip and swing, an attribute that she said has extended into her life off the course.

“I’ve always been a person who’s had my coach, my dad, whoever, right there with me and I’ve looked to them for an answer,” she said. “Right now, I really have taken ownership of, ‘All right, it goes left, it goes right, because of this’ and being more in control. And that leads into my life, too, just being in control of my destiny in a way.

“I’m 32 years old and it’s crazy, I know. But it’s tough when you’re out here and you grow up on tour, but I have to learn to take that responsibility, and that’s something that my coach, Kevin [Craggs], has really tried to implement. Instead of looking for an answer, it’s me giving them the answer why it would happen.”

Creamer said she is “really happy” off the course.

“I definitely feel like I’m in a great place in my life,” she said. “I don’t just do something to do it. I practice always with a purpose. I don’t need to stand out there for 10 hours and hit balls. But my personal life, my family, everybody, it’s been great.”

Creamer said it can be frustrating to look back on her career and wish she had been a little easier on herself, “giving myself some more compliments along the way."

“I always did my thing and just kept on going with my injuries and just life happening,” she said. “You can’t read how to do that. There’s nothing to teach you about those kind of life lessons.”

Yet she said that her expectations “are probably even worse than what they were when I was younger, quite truthfully,” and that she knows what she’s capable of doing. She hopes she can return to that level fairly soon.

“I want it so bad,” she said. “I want to be back where I’ve been. I’m a grinder. I’ve never quit. I never give up on anything. I want to go out there and play the game that I know I can. Injuries, life, everything, is part of it. But I still feel like there’s a lot more that I can do and that I want to do.”