Paula Creamer Wins Again!

I always love watching the LPGA on TV, but when I get to watch them up close it is an extra special treat. My parents and I got to half moon bay just in time to watch the last two groups tee off, and Paula was in the final group so I got to watch her first hole pre-shot routine which was great. She took few second before she approached the ball and looked down and just said a few calming words to herself which I thought was great. It really gives you time to relax and just calm your nerves before you take your first shot of the day. I will definitely implement it when I go to Florida for the National Championship. For whatever reason, I don’t take as much time as I should because since I am the last one to tee off in my group I just try and rush a bit so we can be on our way. I learned a lot from the all of the ladies I saw out there and it was awesome to watch Paula win. The weather was great and it was a great course for spectators. It was very walkable and easy to view the players for every shot. My big sis for the women’s 18 hole group at my club was volunteering at the tournament and she was the chairman for the sign-bearers or something so she got to walk on the course with Lorena Ochoa, so it was great to see her out there. My parents and I watched Lorena’s group as well as Paula’s group, and we followed them up until hole 9 and then we went over to hole 14 and watched Jeong Jang’s group, Christi Kerr’s group, Susan Petterson’s group, all the way until Paula and Anglea came through and then we made our way to the 18th hole and tried to get into the grand stand so we could watch the rest of the groups come in. The grandstands that were provided were really small, but of course the sponsors tents were twice a big and not even half full, which was quite annoying because my dad and I had to stand by the cart bath and the green was above us, so I couldn’t really see the hole from where I was standing. Plus, there were volunteers watching out for people taking pictures and keeping people quiet, so they were standing in the way and I had to ask them to move so everyone could see. It didn’t do much good. The big guy moved closer to us, but was still blocking our view. So we just dealt with it and once Lorena was in sight she hit her second shot into the green side bunker right next to us. So we got to see a close up of Lorena hitting an amazing bunker shot, but I think she ended up with a bogie. We got to see Paula come through and make her par putt which was awesome. The majority of the people left the grand stand and my dad and I rushed up there to get a seat next to my mom and hopefully see the awards ceremony from a better view. I tried to take some pictures and a video of the presentation ceremony, but one of the volunteers told me to put my camera away so the video I ended up taking was a bit crazy. The awards presentation was over and we made our way to the restrooms before we had the long drive home and we ended up standing next to the line of people waiting for the golfers to come out and get their autograph. The volunteer controlling the crowd kept saying that you could not take pictures, and I could not believe it! We were away from the course and I understand why you can’t take pictures on the course because gettyimages has the rights to taking pictures on the course so spectators cannot since there is the possibility that they could sell those pictures and benefit from them. But how could the LPGA even think to not allow spectators to take pictures of their favorite players once they are off/away form the course and signing autographs. How unfair is that for the spectators? California only gets two tournaments a year and there are tons kids that really look up to the ladies on the tour and bring flowers, write notes, and bring gifts to give them and it is unfair to allow those kids to not have a picture with their favorite golfer. After the pit stop we walked towards the shuttle stop in order to get back to the parking lot. It was quite a long line, but I think we only had to wait for 30-40 minutes before we could get onto the bus. We didn’t want to wait in the long line of cars to get back over the hill, so we decided to get some dinner at Barbara’s Fish restaurant. It was a nice dinner and it gave us plenty of time to let the traffic pass and have an easy ride back home. I had an awesome time and the tournament pumped me up for the national championship. Up next...The Longs Drug Challenge at Blackhawk.