Creamer displays youthful spirit, confidence for American team

CARMEL, Ind. -- Paula Creamer could have passed for a schoolgirl at a pep rally.

Then again, that's what she was.

She sat on the grass with her legs crossed, in the front row, with a red, white and blue ribbon tied around her blonde ponytail and tiny American flags painted on both cheeks. She clapped and cheered when the U.S. team walked by during the Solheim Cup matches two years ago in Sweden.

Creamer was at Barseback Golf and Country Club as a member of the 2003 Junior Solheim Cup team.

"It was just so unreal to be in that crowd," she said.

Even more unreal was where she was Tuesday.

Creamer sat with teammate Natalie Gulbis, poised and confident with glitter on her navy blue Solheim Cup cap and her fingernails painted red, white and blue.

This time, Creamer is a player, not a fan.

And the 19-year-old phenom already is the center of attention.

Hours after she became the youngest Solheim Cup player and the first LPGA Tour rookie to make the team, Creamer stood with her teammates -- some of them old enough to be her mother -- and was asked to say a few words.

"All I can say is that they better get ready, because they're going to get beat," she said of the Europeans. "I'm laying it down. I'm very confident, and I know we have a good team and the best captain that anyone can have."

There were murmurs behind her, mostly from the older players who realized the headlines that would follow.

Creamer heard them and didn't back down.

"What are you talking about? You don't want to win?" she said. "Come on."

Creamer is one of three rookies on the U.S. team that will try to keep its record perfect on home soil and win back the Solheim Cup from Europe when the matches start Friday at Crooked Stick.

The others are 21-year-old Christina Kim and the 22-year-old Gulbis. They are the youth movement in American women's golf, and they could not have arrived at a better time.

It was only five years ago, when the United States lost at Loch Lomond, Juli Inkster considered what the future held and didn't like what she saw. International players were dominating the game. The American stars were approaching 40, if they weren't already there.

"I was like, 'Who's going to play?' There was no one out there," the 45-year-old Inkster said. "I'm quite pleased we have some good, young players that can carry on that tradition."

Creamer is enjoying the best rookie season by an American woman since 1984 when Inkster won two major championships.

Creamer won the Sybase Classic outside New York in May, then went home to Florida for high school graduation ceremonies, then won the Evian Masters in France by eight shots.