The Prodigy

Shortly before the 2006 LPGA Tour season ended, Morgan Pressel found herself ranked 23rd on the money list, with over $400,000 in earnings. Having turned 18 on May 23, she celebrated by buying her first car, a tricked-out Mercedes-Benz GL450 SUV with a DVD player, "so I can watch movies while driving to events," she says. And while she is thrilled with her new ride, she admits she is less happy about her performance in her first full year as a professional: "I did all right, but I thought I'd do better."

Considering her brilliant junior golf career, most people would have agreed. She won 11 AJGA titles, the 2005 U.S. Women's Amateur Championship and three consecutive Florida high school championships. In 2005, her junior year in high school, she competed in seven LPGA Tour events, finishing twice in the top five (including a runner-up finish at the U.S. Women's Open) and never lower than 25th. Yet after years of fame, Morgan found herself not-so-famous in her first year as a pro, an upper-middle-of-the-pack player who had lost the spotlight to others. Not that she did badly, mind you. Of the 22 tournaments Morgan played, she finished in the top 10 eight times. She did have a bad stretch from mid-July to mid-August, when, in four tournaments, her average finish was 43rd. She also had a disappointing U.S. Women's Open, finishing T-28.

But Morgan bounced back with ties for seventh and ninth place and a third-place finish at the Longs Drugs Challenge in September. Still, she ended up out of the running for Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year and was overshadowed by her arch-nemesis, Michelle Wie, who was in contention on the final day in three of the four majors. Morgan did not, however, lose her famous feistiness. "I was competing against everyone, not just myself. If I had one of my great rounds, I don't think anyone could shoot better," she says. But she didn't have enough great rounds to satisfy herself. Any other 18-year-old LPGA Tour rookie would have been thrilled with Morgan's record. Yet, she wasn't just another pro. She was a golf prodigy with the great expectations of unchallenged youth.

Morgan lives with her maternal grandparents, Herb and Evelyn Krickstein, in the gated community of St. Andrews in Boca Raton, Fla. She graduated from Saint Andrews High School in May 2006 and still practices at the St. Andrews Golf Club. It was there, in November 2005, that she hosted a breakfast press conference in the club's dining room to announce that she had signed a contract with the sports agency IMG to represent her as a professional golfer. Morgan was 17, with long, blond hair, blue-green eyes, pouty lips and an athlete's sturdy body. She still had stuffed animals on her bed and pop-music posters on her bedroom walls. She had yet to get a driver's license. She had been too busy for that because she had been famous since she was 12.

Morgan is famous for a host of reasons. In 2001 she became the youngest player, at 12, ever to qualify for the U.S. Women's Open. In 2005, at 17, she came within two strokes of being the youngest golfer ever to win the Open. That year, Golfweek ranked her the top amateur female golfer in the world.

Morgan is also famous for the courageous, and stoic, manner with which she dealt with the death of her beloved mother, Kathy, who died of brain cancer at 43 when Morgan was 15. Afterward, Morgan had a very public, and acrimonious, estrangement from her father, Mike Pressel, whose house she left that same year to live with her grandparents.

But mostly, Morgan is famous for, well, being Morgan. She has been called fiery, feisty, passionate and opinionated. She calls herself, proudly, "politically incorrect." She is quick to criticize other players who don't measure up to her competitive standards, which is why she has become one of the Young Guns—along with Paula Creamer, Michelle Wie and Brittany Lincicome—who are redefining the image of women's golf with their games and their personalities. There is less of the country club about these young women than there is the gym, the soccer field, the softball diamond. They squawk, complain, criticize (primarily each other) and boast. They would seem to be more at home throwing elbows and exchanging trash talk underneath a basketball hoop than mouthing platitudes and niceties on a country club course. They have created a new acronym for the LPGA: TCGA. Tough Chicks Golf Association.