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Pressel shares breakthrough joy

US team members Morgan Pressel, left, Paula Creamer, center, and vice-captain Beth Daniel get together on the 17th green at the Solheim Cup near Halmstad, Sweden, on Sunday. The US defeated Europe 16-11 to retain the Cup. PHOTO: AP

Her Solheim Cup victory may have been the sweetest of the many breakthroughs Morgan Pressel is enjoying this season, and not only because it came against Annika Sorenstam.

The 2-and-1 win on Sunday over Sweden's best player was one Pressel got to share -- with her grandparents, who watched every shot, and with her teammates, who are normally rivals but came together for a special week of golf.

"It ranks right up there at the top of her list of accomplishments," said Pressel's grandfather, Herb Krickstein, as he waited for the closing ceremony after the US won 16-12.

That's a big statement given what the 19-year-old Pressel has done this year.

She became the youngest major winner when she took the Nabisco Championship in April. She has finished in the top-10 eight times, is about to hit the US$1 million mark in earnings and has the third-best scoring average on the LPGA Tour.

This, however, may have felt better than all that. On Saturday night, when Betsy King had the pairings in her hand, Pressel already had an inkling she would be playing Sorenstam in the Sunday singles.

It would be a marquee match -- going against the No. 1 Swede in her home country -- and an important one, as well. There is always a guessing game in these Solheim Cup pairings, but there's no doubt that wherever European captain Helen Alfredsson placed Sorenstam in the lineup, she was expecting a win.

"I just had this feeling," Pressel said. "I was like, `I feel like I'm going to be playing Annika.' I looked at the list, it said `Annika,' and I was like, `Wow!'"

The victory spoke to how much more ground Pressel has gained since the week when she showed a big golf audience how good she might really be.

That was two summers ago in the US Open at Cherry Hills.

At that point, she was best known as the kid who knocked off Michelle Wie in the 2003 US Girls Junior Championship. But she became known for something more that week -- for better and for worse -- opening the US Open with five birdies over the first eight holes, but closing the first round crying after having fallen back to par.

It was an emotional week in which she played as well as anyone, but saw her dream of winning as an amateur disappear as she walked up the 18th fairway on Sunday, squinted into the distance and saw Birdie Kim hole out a nearly impossible bunker shot for the victory.

"I know I can win," she said that day, tears still flowing nearly an hour after the round ended. "I know I can play well. I was there the whole day. But I finished second and I'm not holding a trophy."

A lot has changed since then for this prodigy from Boca Raton, Florida. She turned pro last year and success came quickly. These days, she seems calmer under pressure.

Her win at Nabisco came after Suzann Pettersen blew a four-shot lead over the last four holes. But that wasn't to take anything from Pressel, who played the last 24 holes of the tournament without a bogey to put herself in a position to win.

"Oh my God! Oh my God!" she said when her win was complete.

She shed tears of joy and sadness that day, celebrating her victory and remembering her mother, Kathy, who died of breast cancer four years before.

"I know my mother is always with me," she said that day. "And I'm sure she's proud of me."
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