WINNIPEG — The last time a Jewish female pro golfer passed this way was in 1992, when the Du Maurier Ltd. Classic was held in Winnipeg at the St. Charles Golf and Country Club.
Morgan Pressel
Back then Amy Alcott was already a golfing legend. She would eventually be elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame following 30 seasons on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour, during which she won 29 championships, including five majors.
Playing in that same tournament was a less-well-known 33-year-old golfer also pursuing her dream, Nancy Rubin, who was raised in a Conservative Jewish home in Pittsburgh. But while Alcott, 36 at the time, had already tasted the thrill of victory multiple times, Nancy had yet to capture a title following a dozen years of frustration. She played from 1980 to 1995, never winning a pro title. Her career best finish was a third-place showing in 1983 at the Inamore Classic, plus three top-20 finishes in 1990, when she earned a total of just over $50,000 (all figures US).
Fast forward to August 2010 and the CN Canadian Women’s Open, a $2.25 million LPGA Tour event. Played again at St. Charles, another Jewish phenom graced the leader board, the talented and articulate Morgan Pressel, 22, who oozes personality.
Pressel finished the tournament in seventh place after rounds of 72-66-74-69 for a score of 281, just two strokes out of second and five back of the winner Michelle Wie.
Pressel earned $64,276 for her efforts, bringing her year’s win total to $646,217, 11th overall among money leaders, only $20,000 behind Wie.
So far this season, she won the Japan LPGA Salonpas Cupher in May and finished second in the Evian Masters, which earned her $243,000. She’s finished in the top 10 seven times.
Pressel, who has often stated that her Jewish faith plays a large role in her life, has taken home $3.5 million in winnings during her brief career.
Her stats suggest she’s at her best off the tee and on the green. At 77 per cent, she’s fourth overall in keeping the ball on the fairways, and she’s tied for first in putting when hitting the green in regulation, averaging 1.75 puts per green. She’s also seventh on the tour in birdies, ninth in overall putting average (28.89 per round) and is 10th in scoring average at 71.08.
Pressel, who from 2006 to 2010 played in 114 tournaments and made the cut 101 times, was particularly impressed with Canadian fans and offered that “I always enjoy coming here to Canada. I’ve always felt we should come here more often because the crowds are so tremendous. Everybody really loves their golf here.”
More than 65,000 spectators took in the tournament, just short of the event’s record set in Ottawa in 2008.
On the Tuesday prior to the event, Pressel participated in a Callaway function, which included breakfast and a clinic at the largely Jewish Glendale Country Club.
The Tampa, Florida-born athlete was raised in a Jewish home the child of Mike Pressel and Kathy Krickstein Pressel.
At age 12 she became the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open, a record that stood six years until it was broken by Alexis Thompson, another 12-year old only several months her junior.
She finished her amateur career as 2005 American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) junior girls player of the year after winning a total of 11 AJGA titles. That same year, Pressel won the U.S. Women’s Amateur title and was a member of the champion Junior Solheim Cup Team.
The young prodigy turned pro after appealing to the LPGA to become a member one year prior to her 18th birthday. She played part-time on the tour while still attending high school.
In 2007, Pressel was one of three co-leaders starting the final round of the U.S. Women’s Open in Denver. She was tied for first on the 18th but scored a bogey and lost by two strokes, finishing tied for second.
That same year, she earned her first victory at the Kraft Nabisco Championship and by so doing became the youngest-ever winner of an LPGA major golf tournament, seven weeks short of her 19th birthday.
Needless to say, sponsors sought her out in growing numbers after she captured two additional events.
Her meteoric rise was interrupted by tragedy when in September 2003, at age 15, she lost her mother, Kathy, to breast cancer. At that time, her grandparents, Evelyn and Herb Krickstein, a retired physician and pathologist who is also her coach, took her in while her two siblings remained with their father. Sister Madison now plays golf for the University of Texas.
Already a five-year tour veteran, Pressel spoke prior to the start of the CN Canadian Open at a sponsor’s breakfast and shared her own surprise at being so successful at both the amateur and pro games at such a young age.
“It’s very exciting and an honour having major champion next to your name. It’s something I’ll have for my whole career, and it’ll never go away,” she said. “Future winners will only get younger.”
Pressel doesn’t worry much about the even younger competitors who are following her because, “as tough as the competition is getting I’m getting better. I’m definitely more confident,” she said.
Pressel said that sometimes she has to pinch herself when she contemplates how far she has come. “I knew I wanted to play golf professionally when I was 12, when I first qualified for the Women’s Open. Doing what I love at such a young age and meeting so many people is so great. If I wasn’t in golf now, I’d probably still be in school, maybe become a doctor.”