Young and driven to succeed

Chip Alexander, Staff WriterShe was barely a teenager when she played in the 2001 U.S. Women's Open. Morgan Pressel had some game, there was no doubt, but she came to Pine Needles all ponytails and braces, a fresh face and also something of a cute curiosity piece.
Just look at her now.
The Women's Open is back at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club. Pressel is 19, in many ways still the typical teenager -- "She drives met nuts sometimes," grandfather Herb Krickstein says -- but also at the vanguard of a swelling tide of youthful talent sweeping over women's golf.
Their names pop up more and more in golf storylines -- Brittany Lincicome, Paula Creamer, Lorena Ochoa, Suzann Pettersen, Meaghan Francella and Birdie Kim, one of the many young South Koreans on the tour. They're in their 20s, a diverse group that likes to call itself the "Young Guns" -- hardly original but more than fitting.
And let's not forget Michelle Wie. She'll be at Pine Needles, too, certain to attract a large following, certain to mesmerize those who marvel at the potential of this 17-year-old wunderkind yet wonder what she's trying to prove with her gender-bending attempts to play with the men.
For Pressel, the 2001 Women's Open was more than an eye-opening experience. She was a media darling at Pine Needles, pure and simple, and while she missed the 36-hole cut, she got a glimpse of the future she longed to have.
"It was like a light bulb went off in my head," Pressel said. "That this is what I really want to do, this is where I want to be in five, 10 years, this is what I want to be doing with my life."
There's a certain attractiveness to these young women that goes beyond any glamour aspects, any of LPGA hype that "These Girls Rock." Most are fit, athletic, well-dressed, with well-groomed golf swings to match.
"We don't want to be the Anna Kournikova of golf," said Lincicome, 21, a two-time winner on the LPGA Tour.
Kournikova was a pro tennis cover girl whose huge appeal made her millions. She just couldn't win on the tennis court.
"We want to be beautiful and play good golf," Lincicome said. "I think it's the whole package that people are looking at now."
Annika Sorenstam has three Women's Open championships among her 10 major titles, winning in 1995, again in '96 at Pine Needles and then last year after a playoff with Pat Hurst. But she's 36 and has been slowed by bulging and ruptured disks.
Sorenstam has lost her No. 1 spot in the Rolex world golf ranking to Ochoa. But Ochoa, a 25-year-old from Mexico, also feels the swell of the tide behind her.
"The younger girls keep raising the bar," LPGA Tour commissioner Carolyn Bivens said.
Pressel, from Boca Raton, Fla., became the youngest woman to win a major this year in the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Pettersen, 26, nearly won the Nabisco. The Norwegian did win the LPGA Championship, holding off Karrie Webb, the 2001 Open champion at Pine Needles.
Francella, 25, scored her first tour victory. Lincicome has won. So has Creamer, 20.
What's their secret?
Why so good, so young?
"There are more opportunities for girls in golf," veteran tour pro Vicky Goetze-Ackerman said. "They're starting at a younger age, working with strength coaches. They have academies, like they do with tennis. I think it's going to be a trend, because girls mature and develop so much quicker than boys do.
"And they don't have any fear because they haven't experienced any failures, bless their hearts."
Pressel has. In the final round of the 2005 Women's Open in Denver, she stood in the 18th fairway at Cherry Hills and watched as Birdie Kim holed out a winning greenside bunker shot.