Taking The Next Step

Phenoms Like Creamer, Wie One Day Will Be Pros, But When Will It Be Right Time?

By Ken Klavon, USGA

South Hadley, Mass. - Saddled by expanding expectations - some reachable, many not - the hype surrounding today's amateurs appears to be more intense than it ever has been.

Much of that has to do with 14-year-old Michelle Wie, who has taken the golfing world by storm the same way Tiger Woods did when he was on the fast track to dominating the sport.

It's imminent that the most prominent amateurs coming through the ranks, namely Paula Creamer, In-Bee Park and Wie - all 17 or younger - will turn professional one day. Speculation is rampant that it's probably going to happen sooner rather than later. But the real question is whether they should wait.

	After a solid showing at this year's Curtis Cup and second-place finish in the ShopRite LPGA Classic, high school senior-to-be Paula Creamer said Tuesday she hasn't made her decision on whether she'll go pro. (Sam Greenwood/USGA)

Granted, the depth of talent on the women's side is shallower than the men, but the game isn't entirely physical. The question is, are these young talents mentally prepared for the vagaries of the LPGA Tour?

Two players, Cristie Kerr and Michelle McGann, turned pro straight from high school graduation, with mixed results. After muddling through the tour since her rookie season in 1997 Kerr, 26, has won twice this year with victories at the LPGA Takefuji Classic and ShopRite LPGA Classic. The 34-year-old McGann, winner of the 1987 Girls' Junior at The Orchards but didn't qualify this week, has registered seven career victories.

With improved technology, better practice regimens and near-anything at their disposals, amateurs of today have the pedigrees to become accomplished golfers down the road. Then again, raw skill doesn't necessarily translate into success.

"Just because you're a great amateur doesn't mean you're going to be a great professional," said Kelli Kuehne, who turned pro in 1996 after a phenomenal amateur career that included back-to-back U.S. Women's Amateur titles in 1995-96 along with one U.S. Girls' Junior crown (1994).

The Fallen

For every Wie, there is a Vicki Goetz-Ackerman. She was the Michelle Wie before Wie was even born. Her golfing resume as a teenager was impeccable. In fact, her accomplishments tower over anything Creamer, Park or Wie has done.

As a 13-year-old in 1986 - three years before Wie was born - Goetz-Ackerman was the 1986 U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links runner-up to Cindy Schreyer, a remarkable feat for a person so young before Wie et al made it chic. Goetz-Ackerman is one of four 16-year-olds to win the U.S. Women's Amateur (1989). She would go on to capture another Women's Amateur title in 1992, beating Annika Sorenstam in the final at Kemper Lakes Golf Club outside of Chicago. In 1990, she was the runner-up at the Girls' Junior. And the list goes on.

A three-time Golfweek/Titleist Player of the Year (1989, '91 and '92), Goetz-Ackerman made nine of 12 pro tournament cuts as an amateur. In '90 and '92 she was a member of the USA Curtis Cup and Women's World Amateur teams. And also in '92, she was the NCAA champion while playing for the University of Georgia.

The world was her oyster. Not bad for someone who picked up the game at age 3.

Feeling she had nothing left to prove as an amateur, she turned pro in 1993.

Since then, the 31-year-old Goetz-Ackerman has had mild success at best on the LPGA Tour. But she's still looking for that first professional victory and, with a sense of melancholy in her voice, she had little problem owning up to it.

"Things are a lot different now," she said. "They have more people - fitness instructors, swing coaches, psychologists. I was on a fitness program, but not like they are today. They also play in a lot more [pro] tournaments today.

"When I made my decision, it was difficult from the standpoint that I switched equipment, which was a mistake, and I switched alone with no parents or anyone around."

Last year at the U.S. Senior Open, Jack Nicklaus was queried about Wie and then 17-year-old Ty Tryon trying to make the jump to the professional ranks. He didn't necessarily find fault with it, but did offer a stern message in that they should be allowed to be kids.

On Wednesday, the 27-year-old Kuehne followed suit, cautioning younger players to enjoy their adolescent years.

"Let kids be kids," she said. "It terrifies me to see them grow up so fast because this [the tour] will do that to them. I know this makes me sound old, but let them go to high school, get those experiences, have their hearts broken, to know what that feels like.

"I've got the mind-set that no matter what, you should never lose sight that golf doesn't make you a whole person. Golf may be your life, but it doesn't make you the person you are."

Blaze Of Glory

Kuehne, like Goetz-Ackerman, blazed a path through amateur golf. She is one of only two players in USGA history to win the Girls' Junior ('94) and the U.S. Amateur ('95) in successive years. The next year she won the British Women's Amateur and successfully defended her Women's Amateur crown, becoming the first female golfer in history to win both in the same year.

Her success earned her a spot on the '96 USA Curtis Cup and Women's World Amateur teams. At the University of Texas, she earned first-team All-American honors.

According to Kuehne, who started playing golf at 10 and has two brothers who have a strong golfing pedigree (Hank won the 1998 U.S. Amateur; and Trip was the 1994 U.S. Amateur runner-up and two-time USA Walker Cupper), not once did she envision playing a pro event as an amateur because the goals in junior golf were different then. The unwritten code was to do well in amateur events and make the appropriate improvements to prepare herself for a professional career.

Then came the LPGA Tour in 1998 and pie-in-the-sky expectations. Except the pie fell fast, landing squarely on her face. It was an eye opener as Kuehne earned a 20th-place finish at the Betsy King Classic. It would be the highest finish that year.

To date, she's won once on tour, that being the 1999 Corning Classic. This year Kuehne has missed five cuts in 12 events.

"The biggest adjustment I learned when I turned pro was that it's not a game anymore," said Kuehne. "You can start to panic because you're doing this for a living now."

If she had advice for the up-and-comers today it would be this: "When making the transition, don't lose sight of the game and don't get overwhelmed. It's very easy to do."

Experiencing so much success, there were a mirage of illusions that clouded Kuehne's head her first year.

"I thought I should have won five events that first year," Kuehne said. "I thought I was going to dominate pro golf the way I dominated the amateur events.

"I look at my amateur career, where I accomplished everything, and I've had a good pro career. Is it what I expected? Absolutely not. But I'm not disappointed because I learned and matured along the way."

Aree Song, a precocious 18-year-old who made a smooth transition to the LPGA Tour, turned pro last August. In 1999 she raised eyebrows when she won the Girls' Junior, becoming the youngest, at 13 years, 3 months, 7 days, USGA champion in history. As a 13-year-old in 2000, she found herself in the final group at the Nabisco Championship before finishing 10th. Later that year, after turning 14, she became the youngest player to ever advance to the Women's Amateur semifinals, losing to eventual champion Marcy Newton.

And last year in the Women's Open she posted a fifth-place finish. Three placings in the top-10 this year on tour has galvanized her decision to make the pro leap.

The second biggest benefit of being on tour now, she said, is becoming more acclimated to how courses set up and the degree of difficulty each pose. Being an amateur, she was privy to such experiences only a few times a year.

"It takes a lot of pressure off knowing that you have the next event," she said of her exempt status on the tour.

The biggest difference between the amateur and pro ranks?

"I can buy myself dinner now. It's nice to make my own check instead of having my parents pay for everything," joked Song.

Joking aside, it's no laughing matter to someone like Catherine Cartwright, who after winning the 2000 WAPL, has bounced back and forth between the Futures Tour and LPGA Tour. The same would hold true for other amateur champions such as Beth Bauer, Dorothy Delasin, Meredith Duncan and Becky Lucidi. All have struggled since making the jump. In Delasin's case, she has four LPGA Tour victories to her credit. No other U.S. Women's Amateur champion since Delasin in 1999 has a LPGA Tour win.

All this brings us back to Goetz-Ackerman. Before she shed her amateur status, those close to her offered warnings, words that now ring true for Goetze-Ackerman. Back then, naivety triumphed over reason.

A tinge of sadness echoed from Goetz-Ackerman's voice when asked what she would tell someone blinded by the trail of money.

"You can tell everyone until you're blue in the face, but like in my case, I didn't want to listen," she said. "I had all the answers. I felt like at the time it was the right decision to make. Would things be different today had I waited? I don't know.

"My game was pretty bad, and I don't regret it, but it made my life harder than it needed to be."