Creamer hasn't played since February 2010.
Creamer's nightmare started last June; by that time she had participated in 10 events and in half of those she managed to post top 5 finishes. Everything seemed fine and apparently a victory was close; nevertheless, during the Wegman's LPGA, Paula suffered an injury on her left thumb, which made her withdraw from the event
A week later, the "Pink Panther" went to play the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic hoping to comeback in-style. Unfortunately, she couldn't complete her practice round and didn't start the tourney.
Thus, the young North American superstar went to the doctor with the firm intention to play the U.S Women's Open, "I had a couple of cortisone shots and I played the rest of the year fine", said during a press conference in her country.
After excellent performances in three of the most prestigious and demanding events of the schedule -U.S Women's Open (T6), Evian Masters (T5) and Ricoh Women's British Open (T3)- besides winning the Solheim Cup with the her country's squad, Creamer seemed to be back on track; however a couple of weeks later she had to withdraw from the Safeway Classic due to a recurrent stomachache that had been bothering her since 2008.
Her determination lead her to finishing the season, although she wasn't very consistent in her last seven appearances, where she was 28, 14, 4, 13, 25, 2 and 55, respectively.
At the Honda PTT LPGA Thailand -season opener-, the "Pink Panther" managed to stay at the top ten, even when "on the 16th tee I hit a knock-down on the par-3 and i felt it pop or tear or something. I just immediately went down on the ground and started to cry and played the last three holes in tears", she remembered. The next day it was announced that she had withdrawn and that she was flying back to Detroit to receive medical attention.
"I tried braces, I tried gloves, I tried everything that you could imagine. Every doctor said: do everything you can before you have surgery. Surgery was supposed to be just tightening up my hand. They thought it was loose. They could see a couple little things on MRI, but nothing really clear. But ultimately when they opened it up it was torn", said relieved.Therefore, the 23 year old is conscious that she needs to be patient "it's just a work in progress, really. You know, I can't do the shots that I used to do right now. That's just because of swelling and my hand just won't allow it. I'm not going to try; I've lost a considerable amount of distance off the tee, but that'll come back, I'm probably 25 yards shorter than what I was", and also confessed that "they took my golf clubs away from me".
This indicates that Paula's hand should be just fine soon and that she might come back to the winner's circle in no time. Meanwhile, the LPGA can catch it's breath again and celebrate the come back of one of the crowd's favorites.
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