Even U.S. Women's Open champ Paula Creamer can inspire a guy like me

The only time I interviewed Paula Creamer was after her final round at the U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles back in 2007. Creamer seemed visibly frustrated at her 5-over result, which ended up putting her in a tie for 16th and eleven shots behind the eventual winner Cristie Kerr.

But she still stuck around to answer some questions from me, put a smile on her face and signed autographs for about 15 minutes.

Today, her breakthrough U.S. Women’s Open victory at Oakmont Country Club has her many fans ticked, well, pink. With Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa off the tour, Creamer is becoming the most influential of the LPGA stars. A few weeks ago back in Michigan, I was on the driving range at The Orchards near Detroit when out walked the cutest little girl, who couldn’t have been older than six, decked out in head-to-toe pink, right down to the golf bag. She had on big sunglasses and a pony tail, strutting her stuff confidently down the line of the adult male-dominated range.

Who says golf is intimidating for women?

I’ll admit, a little bit of Creamer has rubbed off on me. Back when the gals played St. Andrews for the Ricoh Women’s British Open in 2007, one of the week’s best pictures was of her performing a cartwheel in front of the Swilcan Bridge. I loved this shot because it helped show that the Old Course was as welcoming and down-to-earth as your local muni.

If she tried to do that on the Hogan bridge at Augusta National, she might end up in jail.

I returned to the Old Course for the second time in the spring of 2009, and I already had the obligatory Swilcan Bridge shot of me smiling with my golf bag atop it from my first time around in 2006. This time around, we made it back to the 18th tee with darkness creeping in fast. After our tee shots, my two playing partners, a father and son from Sweden, had their picture taken on the bridge for the first time. I wondered if I even needed another picture here myself.

But before walking over I thought, “Hey, Creamer did a cartwheel here, why not do something kinda goofy?” The first thing that came to mind was to turn my driver into a fishing rod, and I took the following photo.

So hey, even Creamer can rub off on the boys sometimes.

Photo credit: Warren Little/Getty images