Morgan Pressel, with a little help from her LPGA Tour friends, played some golf for charity on Monday and raised a record $750,000 for breast cancer research and awareness.
Joining Pressel for the eighth annual Morgan & Friends Fight Cancer event at St. Andrews CC in Boca Raton, Fla., was a who’s-who of women’s golf: World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam, 2014 Kraft Nabisco champion Lexi Thompson, two-time major winner Cristie Kerr, and 2010 U.S. Women’s Open titleholder Paula Creamer, to name a few. Pressel lost her mother, Kathy Krickstein Pressel, to breast cancer in 2003, when the future tour star was 15.
“I knew I wanted to do something to honor her and to leave a legacy,” Pressel said on Golf Channel’s “Morning Drive” Wednesday, “and to make a difference in the lives of other women battling breast cancer.”
Pressel’s efforts over the years have funded the creation of the Kathy Krickstein Pressel MammonVan, which travels across the region to provide affordable breast exams and digital mammography to women who would not otherwise have access to such services. Her work, and that of her A-list tour colleagues, also enables genetic testing and drug research.
Creamer took to Instagram to post her #womancrushwednesday appreciation for Pressel’s endeavors — a message that brought tears to the eyes of her friend.
“#WCW with out a doubt goes to @mpressel Not only is she an unbelievable golfer but truly an even better person. She is one of a kind and am so proud to call her my friend,” Creamer wrote. “What she is doing for women and their families with the Morgan Pressel Foundation makes me so proud. She won’t stop until there is a cure and even after that she will continue to push harder. Congrats again on the success of the Morgan & Friends. #MOH #makingadifference #morganandfriends15”
Creamer’s words caught Pressel, in the midst of a GC playing lesson, off guard.
“It makes me cry. I love Paula,” said an emotional Pressel, the maid of honor at Creamer’s recent wedding. “She’s a very special woman and has helped me a lot with my foundation and I can’t thank her enough.”
The record amount of funds raised this week were beyond Pressel’s expectations and put her Morgan Pressel Foundation over the $4 million mark in total money raised since the event kicked off in 2008.
