King might need to make some room for Creamer

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- It's probably understandable that Betsy King doesn't spend a lot of time perusing the money-list totals on the LPGA these days.

'Money title or not, I want to win this event,' Paula Creamer says. (Getty Images)

When she started out, the future hall of famer said that if she made $500 in earnings in a tournament week, she'd earned enough to cover all her expenses, caddie fee included.

"That's changed a lot," she laughed.

Like the diminishing value of a greenback or the escalating purse totals on tour, something that seemed an unwavering, veritable certainty back in her prime has also changed markedly. King was the last American player to top the season money list, a fact that had escaped her notice until it was mentioned to her Saturday at the season-ending ADT Championship, which she was attending as a spectator.

"I had no idea," said King, who led the tour in 1993. "You would think that maybe somebody in the last 15 years ..."

Yeah, our point exactly.

The All-American drought could end Sunday in the final round at Trump International Golf Club, where 22-year-old native Californian Paula Creamer can jump past Mexico's Lorena Ochoa by winning an eight-player shootout to claim the $1 million first prize.

Unlike King, Creamer, who has been battling an illness all week and has been surviving on bagels, dry toast and a few bites of banana, is acutely aware of what's at stake. Fittingly, six of her competitors are internationals.

"The money list, it's my main goal," Creamer said.

Like Creamer's waistline, American hopes have been involuntarily withering away since King last topped the earnings list. At that point, she was the 43rd American in the 44-year history of the organization to finish No. 1 in money. King and fellow Yank Dottie Pepper, the 1992 money leader, were at the crest of a wave, though nobody knew it at the time. An outright rip tide followed that not a soul associated with the game saw coming.

"It was abrupt," Pepper said.

To plenty of us, 15 years seems like only yesterday. Tiger Woods was still in high school, Creamer was 7 years old and Annika Sorenstam, who retired Friday, had just finished her college career. But the tectonic shift on the LPGA has been unmistakable, and the seismic shaking doesn't seem likely to end, no matter how it plays out for Creamer on Sunday.

The LPGA has become the primary destination for first-rate pro players, who are headed to the States in droves. The elite field this week featured 32 players from nine foreign nations. Angela Stanford was the only other Yank to make Sunday's final round.