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about 1 month ago: OAKMONT PA - JULY 11: Paula Creamer celebrates her four-stroke victory at the 2010 U.S. Women's Open at Oakmont Country Club on July 11 2010 in Oakmont Pennsylvania. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

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Paula Creamer won the U.S. Women's Open, the first major championship of her career.  She finished four shots ahead of Na Yeon Choi and Suzann Pettersen and five shots in front of In-Kyung Kim and Amy Yang.

Starting the final round up by three at -1 thanks to a birdie which ended her third round Sunday morning, Paula spent most of the day maintaining her lead.  She got a little help early when playing partners Wendy Ward and Yang suffered blow-up holes, Ward with a triple-bogey at 1 and Yang with a double at 2.  Pettersen and Christina Kim each birdied 2 to step into second place at +2.  Paula missed a six-footer for par at 4 which trimmed her lead to two but immediately got it back with a birdie from 10 feet at 5.  Choi was making a move - three birdies in four holes got her to +3.  A tremendous second shot to the par-5 9^th left only six feet for eagle and NYC dropped it to take over solo second at +1, two shots behind the leader.

Creamer made a couple of nice par saves just before NBC went to air, the best one at 8 from 12 feet.  At 9 she played a fine second to 20 feet, rolled a so-so eagle putt but canned the three-foot birdie to make the turn at -2 with another three-shot lead.  She saved par from four feet at 10 and just missed for birdie from 25 at 11.  In the meantime, Choi had run a birdie attempt five feet past at 13 and missed the comebacker while Brittany Lang had birdied 12 and 13 to jump over Choi for second place.  Pettersen seemingly had a birdie attempt at every hole but couldn't get any to drop and to boot, she bogeyed 10.  At this point the leaderboard looked like this:

For the first time all day, Creamer missed the fairway at 12 and she missed it big - into a steep bunker.  She was forced to play it only about 50 yards down the fairway, leaving over 300 to the pin.  Paula recoiled in pain while striking her third, which ended up in good position at about 88 yards.  Understandably her fourth wasn't very good, winding up 35 feet from the hole.  She two-putted for bogey and once again her lead was two but things were suddenly rather dicey. 

Lang and Choi flip-flopped again, this time in reverse.  Lang couldn't get up-and-down from a bunker at 15 while Choi two-putted for birdie on the reachable par-4 17^th.  Creamer barely found the second cut at 13 but played a brilliant shot to four feet, which she was unable to cash in.  Lang's tee shot at 16 found the front of the green but was 90 feet from the hole.  Three putts later, she was +3 and pretty much done.  Choi had 25 feet for a birdie at 18 to finish even par but she left it short.

Just when you thought she would pull out the conservative playbook, Paula went wild.  At 14 she played her approach to 12 feet and drained the putt to reach -2 and lead by three.  At 15 she roped her second to three feet and in my notes I wrote "IT'S OVER".  She made that birdie to go -3, the first time all week Creamer had seen that number beside her name.  At 16 she fired her tee shot to five feet.  Missing the putt didn't really matter, and she cruised home with easy pars at the final two holes.

Once things were decided, Pettersen finally made a couple of putts (at 16 and 18) to steal a share of second place.  Inky also closed strong - a 30-footer at 13 was the best of her three birdies over the last six holes.  Jiyai Shin birdied three of the last four (a long one at 18 brought the loudest off-camera cheer I heard today) and Yang eagled 17 as they came back to share fifth place with Lang. 

I'll have a lot more tomorrow but for now, I and a lot of other fans are celebrating that long awaited first major for the Pink Panther.  Congratulations!