AJGA
Members Boast Major Presence at Kraft Nabisco
First LPGA major of the year includes current, former
AJGA members
Rolex
Junior Player of the Year Paula Creamer |
When the LPGA kicks off its first major of the
season this weekend, two current AJGA members and three alumni
will compete as amateurs in the 99-player field at the Kraft
Nabisco Championship.
2003 Rolex Junior Player of the Year Paula Creamer and first-team
Rolex Junior All-American Jane Park will compete in the 72-hole
championship event at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho
Mirage, Calif. Current college stars and former AJGA standouts
Erica Blasberg, Elizabeth Janangelo and Virada Nirapathpongporn
will also join the field for the first LPGA major of 2004.
Creamer, a 17-year-old from Pleasanton, Calif., has won 11
AJGA events in her career, including two AJGA Majors. 2003
saw her notch five wins in her first five national tournaments
of the season. Creamer never finished worse than eighth in
2003 en route to being named Rolex Junior Player of the Year.
From Beaumont, Calif., Park was named a first-team Rolex Junior
All-American after a season in which she won the McDonald's
Betsy Rawls Girls National Championship. The 17-year-old was
runner-up at the 2003 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship
and also finished second at the Rolex Girls Junior Championship
and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail Junior Classic.
A sophomore at the University of Arizona, Blasberg is currently
ranked No. 2 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index and
has five top-five finishes in just six events this season.
The native of Corona, Calif., has won five times in her two
seasons as a collegian. While playing in the AJGA, Blasberg
was named a Rolex Junior All-American on four occasions including
twice as a first-teamer. Blasberg won the 2002 Rolex Tournament
of Champions.
Janangelo, a sophomore at Duke University, is the top-rated
collegiate golfer in the country according to the Golfweek/Sagarin
Performance Index. From West Hartford, Conn., Janangelo has
also won five times in her two years as a college golfer.
As a junior golfer, Janangelo won nine AJGA events and was
named the 2001 Rolex Junior Player of the Year.
Also a member of Duke’s women’s golf team, Nirapathpongporn
is currently rated fourth in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance
Index. She won the 2003 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship
and the 2002 NCAA individual championship. As an AJGA member,
Nirapathpongporn won six times including the inaugural Thunderbird
International Junior in 2000. Nirapathpongporn was named a
first-team Rolex Junior All-American in 1998, 1999 and 2000.