Is This Girl for Real?

WowWie · 07-02-2007, 04:53 PM

Pressel, fan favorite, puts her emotions on display
By Lenox Rawlings
JOURNAL COLUMNIST
Monday, July 2, 2007

SOUTHERN PINES - Women?s golf wants a stronger grip on American fans, and the fans want a stronger American striding down the pro fairways.

All those wishes and dreams converged yesterday at the U.S. Women?s Open. The people voted. They elected Morgan Pressel by a landslide, even as American Cristie Kerr churned toward her two-stroke victory.

The audience showered Pressel with cheers and shouts, the only dissenting voices belonging to Lorena Ochoa supporters who waved an occasional Mexican flag and yelled encouragement in Spanish. The crowd?s love affair with Pressel bore earmarks of the warm golfing relationship between galleries and Phil Mickelson, a magnetic favorite during two Masters victories and even after his implosion on the final hole of the 2006 U.S. Open.

Stumbling down the stretch

Pressel, the female Phil, the 19-year-old blonde seeking her second major title this year, acknowledged the outpouring with toothy smiles and deferential nods until the finish, when she cried uncontrollably on the 18th green.

The white scoreboard washed in gold sunlight told the cold story: Pressel double-bogeyed the 18th, went five over par on the last five holes and shot 77. She sank from second place to 10th, from one shot behind to eight. Only two players recorded worse scores in the fourth round, an American amateur and a 19-year-old Korean.

Kerr and fellow tourist Natalie Gulbis hugged Pressel, who again covered her reddish blue eyes with oversized shades and walked under the grandstand. She slumped against a pole, sat on the ground and sobbed some more, her muscular shoulders shaking. A business agent consoled her as U.S. Golf Association workers, scorers and reporters walked past, dumbfounded.

Children and teens waiting on the other side of the grandstand cheered Ochoa and Kerr as they walked to the scoring trailer. A minute passed, then two. ?Where?s Morgan?? a girl asked loudly.

Tears of frustration

Pressel was still under the grandstand, hidden by the green mesh covering the steel supports, still wallowing in her slow-leak collapse. She finally emerged. She slapped a couple of extended hands as she hurried past, tears streaming down her face. She entered the scoring trailer - equipped with a box of tissues, among other things - and signed the card.

Kerr told Pressel: ?Thank you for being there for me. I?ll be there for you when you win.?

Pressel replied: ?You were, this year at the Kraft.?

Kerr: ?No, for the U.S. Open.?

Pressel came back down the steps toward her grandparents, instrumental figures in the years since her mother?s death. Grandfather Herb Krickstein managed her introduction to competitive golf and escorted her onto the Pine Needles stage as the youngest Open player in 2001, when she had just turned 13.

Not even her grandparents could stop the crying. Pressel kept bending over in agony, tears still flowing. With three security guards as buffers, Pressel and her small entourage retreated to a shaded parking lot and waited for golf carts to whisk them away. She avoided reporters but answered a few questions from a USGA media representative.

?I just didn?t play well at all today,? she said. ?I just kind of lost it, especially coming down at the end. I?ve been working a lot on my putting, and I?m just not quite comfortable with it yet. My speed was terrible and, I mean, I saved a lot of good putts on the front nine to shoot what I did. It was just a mess. I wasn?t close at all. Those putts were miserable.

?It just snowballed a bit. I probably let it get a little away from myself. Tried grinding pretty hard, and that?s something that I can?t do. I?m just pretty upset by the way I played today.?

When darkness fell Saturday, Pressel trailed leader Jiyai Shin by two shots and heavy favorite Ochoa by one. They all completed the third round yesterday morning, with Kerr taking a one-shot lead over Ochoa, Pressel and Shin.

That added up to a long Saturday and a long Sunday. ?But,? Pressel said, ?it was a long day for everybody. So, I don?t know. I?m ready to go home.?

Short-game blues

She seemed capable of an early checkout in the fourth round, but she chipped in for birdie on the par-5 10th and hung two shots behind Ochoa and Kerr until they reached the 14th green. The putter didn?t do her in there. The decision to chip from the fringe rather than putt cost her when the hot chip rolled about 8 feet past the hole.

Pressel?s vital par putt stayed right of the hole all the way. Kerr drilled a birdie putt from about 15 feet, and suddenly Pressel trailed by four. She sensed the worst. She slapped her putter. She took the bug-eyed shades off the top of her visor and put them on, storming off the green toward the 15th tee.

She failed to convert a good birdie chance on 15 and bogeyed the 16th. Pressel moved on to the 17th tee as her cohorts finished up. She signed a ball and presented it to a volunteer, then bent over and visibly cried for the first time.

The pattern continued all the way to the 18th, where she chipped past the pin and into a bunker, blasted out and two-putted for double bogey. She couldn?t hold back the flood, which surprised Gulbis. ?I just gave her a hug,? Gulbis said. ?She was very upset. Did Morgan really have a chance? She seemed to be down all day.?

Emotional competitiveness

Pressel cried sometimes after losing amateur tournaments. The world saw her raw disappointment at the 2005 Open when Birdie Kim sank a hard bunker shot for victory on the last hole with co-leader Pressel standing in the fairway. Kerr understood the meltdown yesterday.

?She?s one of my very best friends, and she was a bridesmaid at my wedding,? Kerr said. ?We had a terrific group playing Sunday the final round. You always want to see the people that you love play well. She?s like a sister to me. It?s disappointing, but I know how good she is. I know how much fire and passion she has?. But she?s very emotional. I think she?s learning how to handle that better. When I was 18, I could tell you I was just like her. Maybe that?s why we get along. She?s a very, very special person.?

Chris Armstrong, the International Management Group agent who consoled Pressel, portrayed the reaction as another example of her emotional competitiveness. ?That?s what you want in a great player,? Armstrong said. ?She cares about winning. Five years from now, when she?s out there accepting the trophy, she?ll look back on this and say it was a necessary part of the process.?

Five years from now, with or without the trophy, she will still have the crowd.

http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Sa...=1173351859371

cleo · 07-02-2007, 05:07 PM

If Morgan really wants it she's going to have to hit the workouts hard. Lorena was said to be about 115lbs. by one of the announcers Sunday. That doesn't stop her from bombing her drives.

Nevertheless, Morgan still was in the finale group at this year's Open and I offer that she felt like she let her growing number of fans down.

She probably was a little embarrassed.

MarinePaul · 07-02-2007, 05:16 PM

Morgan is a competitor, and she sometimes puts more pressure on herself than she's capable of handling. She's matured quite a bit since her rookie year, and will only continue to mature. We have to remember she's still a very young player.

Blue · 07-02-2007, 05:32 PM

I'm a big Morgan fan, but I'm disappointed that she can't pull her emotions together after a loss. I know she thinks she can win them all, but nobody wins them all. I saw some of the club tossing and bag kicking at Wegmans last week also. We're seeing some maturing for sure, but for her own sake -- it's not so much what the fans think of her, but for her own health -- she's got to be able to move on after these disappointments.

As for hitting the gym and gaining strength? That's not all it takes. Lorena gained distance by changing her swing. Besides, Morgan was clearly in contention up until round 4.

GreginOhio · 07-02-2007, 08:39 PM

No matter how smart and accomplished she is she is still so young and there will continue to be temper tantrums until she grows up a bit. I don't think any of us could imagine how humiliating it would be to chip off the green like that when there are thousands of people standing around and watching. Fortunately, she has that contract with that cool sunglass company and she gave them some nice advertisement.

Mtgolfer · 07-02-2007, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by GreginOhio

No matter how smart and accomplished she is she is still so young and there will continue to be temper tantrums until she grows up a bit. I don't think any of us could imagine how humiliating it would be to chip off the green like that when there are thousands of people standing around and watching. Fortunately, she has that contract with that cool sunglass company and she gave them some nice advertisement.

Well, I know how humiliating it is to chip off the green when only my playing partners are there.........

Seriously, though, she lost her cool once she believed she was out of it after 14. I think she's a "win or else" competitor at this point. Nothing wrong with putting all her effort into winning, but she needs to learn to not beat herself up when it doesn't happen.

DJGOLFER59 · 07-03-2007, 04:01 AM

This is the first time in quite a while shes lost her cool. Shes learned to control it much better. Shows how much this meant to her to once again have a us open slip away.

And on a side note, can we agree that this was one of, if not the best, final pairings in recent memory?

profdan · 07-03-2007, 05:05 AM

Originally Posted by DJGOLFER59

This is the first time in quite a while shes lost her cool. Shes learned to control it much better. Shows how much this meant to her to once again have a us open slip away.

And on a side note, can we agree that this was one of, if not the best, final pairings in recent memory?

I agree, and although I was rooting for another in that threesome, the fourth round competition level had me glued to the TV.

Like so many of you, I felt very badly for Morgan during her last few holes. I'm sure she can learn from this experience, and have a great LPGA future.

Morgan is surely one of the top LPGA members.

MarinePaul · 07-03-2007, 12:30 PM

Originally Posted by DJGOLFER59

This is the first time in quite a while shes lost her cool. Shes learned to control it much better. Shows how much this meant to her to once again have a us open slip away.

And on a side note, can we agree that this was one of, if not the best, final pairings in recent memory?

DJ, that's part of her maturation. She's maintained pretty well this year, and just had a meltdown after a bad round. SHe's definitely better at contolling her emotions than she was last year.

As far as the final pairing, I agree completetly. In fact, this may have been the best tournament in years, period.

Carl Spackler · 07-03-2007, 01:41 PM

Morgan Pressel is a great golfer, but I had a personal interaction with her that tells me she?s less mature than her age peers on the tour, not a good thing for a young person in such a prominent spotlight.

After briefly watching Paula Creamer make a Wegman?s Tuesday practice crowd her own, even those spectators who until that moment didn?t realize they were her fans, I wandered over to watch Morgan and another player prepare to tee off.

Now, I?m a new LPGA fan and probably not a typical one by any means, and my dress that day would?ve been the norm for Shea Stadium, but it wasn?t the norm for Locust Hill. Regardless, I am the ?reason? Morgan can make millions of $ playing a game, and expect to be treated as such (ie feel free to ignore me, Morgan, as every other professional athlete does when I watch them perform).

I?m quietly watching from a good distance away (the only spectator around), and in a voice I can clearly hear Morgan makes an insulting comment about me to her partner! It was the kind of thing I might expect to hear from a high school kid at the mall, but frankly I was shocked to hear it coming from a world class professional athlete. To her credit, Morgan?s partner (who?s only barely out her teens herself) looked embarrassed and ignored the comment.

Now, I don?t really care about the incident (or now Morgan, obviously), but it does indicate to me that Morgan possesses an unattractive sense of entitlement that many of her age peers on the tour either don?t have or better conceal.

Paula?s obviously not an age peer (huge maturity difference between just-turned-19 and about-to-turn-21), but the Koreans Morgan's age or younger I?ve recently seen interviewed or on the course (rookies Ice-K Kim, Angela Park, Na On Min) all seem alot more mature, and show no sign yet of taking for granted making a great living playing golf. And with Angela?s stated goals (no missed cuts, ROY, a win) and the year she?s having, I wouldn?t be surprised if she thinks she?s better than Morgan...

I intended this as a comment that being young doesn?t make it OK for a professional athlete to show her immaturity, it kind of got away from me...

07-02-2007, 04:53 PM	#1
WowWie Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Chicago Posts: 32	Is This Girl for Real? Pressel, fan favorite, puts her emotions on display By Lenox Rawlings JOURNAL COLUMNIST Monday, July 2, 2007 SOUTHERN PINES - Women?s golf wants a stronger grip on American fans, and the fans want a stronger American striding down the pro fairways. All those wishes and dreams converged yesterday at the U.S. Women?s Open. The people voted. They elected Morgan Pressel by a landslide, even as American Cristie Kerr churned toward her two-stroke victory. The audience showered Pressel with cheers and shouts, the only dissenting voices belonging to Lorena Ochoa supporters who waved an occasional Mexican flag and yelled encouragement in Spanish. The crowd?s love affair with Pressel bore earmarks of the warm golfing relationship between galleries and Phil Mickelson, a magnetic favorite during two Masters victories and even after his implosion on the final hole of the 2006 U.S. Open. Stumbling down the stretch Pressel, the female Phil, the 19-year-old blonde seeking her second major title this year, acknowledged the outpouring with toothy smiles and deferential nods until the finish, when she cried uncontrollably on the 18th green. The white scoreboard washed in gold sunlight told the cold story: Pressel double-bogeyed the 18th, went five over par on the last five holes and shot 77. She sank from second place to 10th, from one shot behind to eight. Only two players recorded worse scores in the fourth round, an American amateur and a 19-year-old Korean. Kerr and fellow tourist Natalie Gulbis hugged Pressel, who again covered her reddish blue eyes with oversized shades and walked under the grandstand. She slumped against a pole, sat on the ground and sobbed some more, her muscular shoulders shaking. A business agent consoled her as U.S. Golf Association workers, scorers and reporters walked past, dumbfounded. Children and teens waiting on the other side of the grandstand cheered Ochoa and Kerr as they walked to the scoring trailer. A minute passed, then two. ?Where?s Morgan?? a girl asked loudly. Tears of frustration Pressel was still under the grandstand, hidden by the green mesh covering the steel supports, still wallowing in her slow-leak collapse. She finally emerged. She slapped a couple of extended hands as she hurried past, tears streaming down her face. She entered the scoring trailer - equipped with a box of tissues, among other things - and signed the card. Kerr told Pressel: ?Thank you for being there for me. I?ll be there for you when you win.? Pressel replied: ?You were, this year at the Kraft.? Kerr: ?No, for the U.S. Open.? Pressel came back down the steps toward her grandparents, instrumental figures in the years since her mother?s death. Grandfather Herb Krickstein managed her introduction to competitive golf and escorted her onto the Pine Needles stage as the youngest Open player in 2001, when she had just turned 13. Not even her grandparents could stop the crying. Pressel kept bending over in agony, tears still flowing. With three security guards as buffers, Pressel and her small entourage retreated to a shaded parking lot and waited for golf carts to whisk them away. She avoided reporters but answered a few questions from a USGA media representative. ?I just didn?t play well at all today,? she said. ?I just kind of lost it, especially coming down at the end. I?ve been working a lot on my putting, and I?m just not quite comfortable with it yet. My speed was terrible and, I mean, I saved a lot of good putts on the front nine to shoot what I did. It was just a mess. I wasn?t close at all. Those putts were miserable. ?It just snowballed a bit. I probably let it get a little away from myself. Tried grinding pretty hard, and that?s something that I can?t do. I?m just pretty upset by the way I played today.? When darkness fell Saturday, Pressel trailed leader Jiyai Shin by two shots and heavy favorite Ochoa by one. They all completed the third round yesterday morning, with Kerr taking a one-shot lead over Ochoa, Pressel and Shin. That added up to a long Saturday and a long Sunday. ?But,? Pressel said, ?it was a long day for everybody. So, I don?t know. I?m ready to go home.? Short-game blues She seemed capable of an early checkout in the fourth round, but she chipped in for birdie on the par-5 10th and hung two shots behind Ochoa and Kerr until they reached the 14th green. The putter didn?t do her in there. The decision to chip from the fringe rather than putt cost her when the hot chip rolled about 8 feet past the hole. Pressel?s vital par putt stayed right of the hole all the way. Kerr drilled a birdie putt from about 15 feet, and suddenly Pressel trailed by four. She sensed the worst. She slapped her putter. She took the bug-eyed shades off the top of her visor and put them on, storming off the green toward the 15th tee. She failed to convert a good birdie chance on 15 and bogeyed the 16th. Pressel moved on to the 17th tee as her cohorts finished up. She signed a ball and presented it to a volunteer, then bent over and visibly cried for the first time. The pattern continued all the way to the 18th, where she chipped past the pin and into a bunker, blasted out and two-putted for double bogey. She couldn?t hold back the flood, which surprised Gulbis. ?I just gave her a hug,? Gulbis said. ?She was very upset. Did Morgan really have a chance? She seemed to be down all day.? Emotional competitiveness Pressel cried sometimes after losing amateur tournaments. The world saw her raw disappointment at the 2005 Open when Birdie Kim sank a hard bunker shot for victory on the last hole with co-leader Pressel standing in the fairway. Kerr understood the meltdown yesterday. ?She?s one of my very best friends, and she was a bridesmaid at my wedding,? Kerr said. ?We had a terrific group playing Sunday the final round. You always want to see the people that you love play well. She?s like a sister to me. It?s disappointing, but I know how good she is. I know how much fire and passion she has?. But she?s very emotional. I think she?s learning how to handle that better. When I was 18, I could tell you I was just like her. Maybe that?s why we get along. She?s a very, very special person.? Chris Armstrong, the International Management Group agent who consoled Pressel, portrayed the reaction as another example of her emotional competitiveness. ?That?s what you want in a great player,? Armstrong said. ?She cares about winning. Five years from now, when she?s out there accepting the trophy, she?ll look back on this and say it was a necessary part of the process.? Five years from now, with or without the trophy, she will still have the crowd. http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Sa...=1173351859371

07-02-2007, 05:07 PM	#2
cleo Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: PA Posts: 1,494	If Morgan really wants it she's going to have to hit the workouts hard. Lorena was said to be about 115lbs. by one of the announcers Sunday. That doesn't stop her from bombing her drives. Nevertheless, Morgan still was in the finale group at this year's Open and I offer that she felt like she let her growing number of fans down. She probably was a little embarrassed. __________________ "There's no use arguing with a fool. He only rages and scoffs, and tempers flare."

07-02-2007, 05:16 PM	#3
MarinePaul Moderator Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 8,001	Morgan is a competitor, and she sometimes puts more pressure on herself than she's capable of handling. She's matured quite a bit since her rookie year, and will only continue to mature. We have to remember she's still a very young player. __________________ Happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you have.

07-02-2007, 05:32 PM	#4
Blue Forum Moderator Contests: Joint 3rd place overall winner 2009. Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 7,650 Images: 6	I'm a big Morgan fan, but I'm disappointed that she can't pull her emotions together after a loss. I know she thinks she can win them all, but nobody wins them all. I saw some of the club tossing and bag kicking at Wegmans last week also. We're seeing some maturing for sure, but for her own sake -- it's not so much what the fans think of her, but for her own health -- she's got to be able to move on after these disappointments. As for hitting the gym and gaining strength? That's not all it takes. Lorena gained distance by changing her swing. Besides, Morgan was clearly in contention up until round 4. Last edited by Blue; 07-02-2007 at 10:06 PM.

07-02-2007, 09:36 PM	#6
Mtgolfer Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 15	Originally Posted by GreginOhio No matter how smart and accomplished she is she is still so young and there will continue to be temper tantrums until she grows up a bit. I don't think any of us could imagine how humiliating it would be to chip off the green like that when there are thousands of people standing around and watching. Fortunately, she has that contract with that cool sunglass company and she gave them some nice advertisement. Well, I know how humiliating it is to chip off the green when only my playing partners are there......... Seriously, though, she lost her cool once she believed she was out of it after 14. I think she's a "win or else" competitor at this point. Nothing wrong with putting all her effort into winning, but she needs to learn to not beat herself up when it doesn't happen.

07-02-2007, 08:39 PM	#5
GreginOhio Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Akron, Ohio Posts: 57	No matter how smart and accomplished she is she is still so young and there will continue to be temper tantrums until she grows up a bit. I don't think any of us could imagine how humiliating it would be to chip off the green like that when there are thousands of people standing around and watching. Fortunately, she has that contract with that cool sunglass company and she gave them some nice advertisement.

07-03-2007, 04:01 AM	#7
DJGOLFER59 Contest Statistician Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 1,685	This is the first time in quite a while shes lost her cool. Shes learned to control it much better. Shows how much this meant to her to once again have a us open slip away. And on a side note, can we agree that this was one of, if not the best, final pairings in recent memory?

07-03-2007, 05:05 AM	#8
profdan Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 176	Is This Girl for Real? Originally Posted by DJGOLFER59 This is the first time in quite a while shes lost her cool. Shes learned to control it much better. Shows how much this meant to her to once again have a us open slip away. And on a side note, can we agree that this was one of, if not the best, final pairings in recent memory? I agree, and although I was rooting for another in that threesome, the fourth round competition level had me glued to the TV. Like so many of you, I felt very badly for Morgan during her last few holes. I'm sure she can learn from this experience, and have a great LPGA future. Morgan is surely one of the top LPGA members.

07-03-2007, 12:30 PM	#9
MarinePaul Moderator Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Warren, Ohio Posts: 8,001	Originally Posted by DJGOLFER59 This is the first time in quite a while shes lost her cool. Shes learned to control it much better. Shows how much this meant to her to once again have a us open slip away. And on a side note, can we agree that this was one of, if not the best, final pairings in recent memory? DJ, that's part of her maturation. She's maintained pretty well this year, and just had a meltdown after a bad round. SHe's definitely better at contolling her emotions than she was last year. As far as the final pairing, I agree completetly. In fact, this may have been the best tournament in years, period. __________________ Happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you have.

07-03-2007, 01:41 PM	#10
Carl Spackler Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 57	Morgan Pressel is a great golfer, but I had a personal interaction with her that tells me she?s less mature than her age peers on the tour, not a good thing for a young person in such a prominent spotlight. After briefly watching Paula Creamer make a Wegman?s Tuesday practice crowd her own, even those spectators who until that moment didn?t realize they were her fans, I wandered over to watch Morgan and another player prepare to tee off. Now, I?m a new LPGA fan and probably not a typical one by any means, and my dress that day would?ve been the norm for Shea Stadium, but it wasn?t the norm for Locust Hill. Regardless, I am the ?reason? Morgan can make millions of $ playing a game, and expect to be treated as such (ie feel free to ignore me, Morgan, as every other professional athlete does when I watch them perform). I?m quietly watching from a good distance away (the only spectator around), and in a voice I can clearly hear Morgan makes an insulting comment about me to her partner! It was the kind of thing I might expect to hear from a high school kid at the mall, but frankly I was shocked to hear it coming from a world class professional athlete. To her credit, Morgan?s partner (who?s only barely out her teens herself) looked embarrassed and ignored the comment. Now, I don?t really care about the incident (or now Morgan, obviously), but it does indicate to me that Morgan possesses an unattractive sense of entitlement that many of her age peers on the tour either don?t have or better conceal. Paula?s obviously not an age peer (huge maturity difference between just-turned-19 and about-to-turn-21), but the Koreans Morgan's age or younger I?ve recently seen interviewed or on the course (rookies Ice-K Kim, Angela Park, Na On Min) all seem alot more mature, and show no sign yet of taking for granted making a great living playing golf. And with Angela?s stated goals (no missed cuts, ROY, a win) and the year she?s having, I wouldn?t be surprised if she thinks she?s better than Morgan... I intended this as a comment that being young doesn?t make it OK for a professional athlete to show her immaturity, it kind of got away from me... __________________ In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, "Au revoir, gopher".

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode