Cristie Kerr

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Cristie Kerr

Cristie Kerr (born October 12, 1977 in Miami, Florida) is an American golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour.

Kerr started playing golf at the age of eight. She had a very successful amateur career and was the 1996 American Junior Golf Association Junior Player of the Year. That same year she played in the Curtis Cup and was the low amateur at the U.S. Women's Open.

Kerr turned professional in 1996 and tied for sixth at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament to gain exempt status for 1997. Her LPGA career started fairly slowly. It took her three years to make the top fifty on the money list, but in 2002 she won for the first time as a professional at the Longs Drugs Challenge. By 2004 she was one of the leading players on the tour, with three tournament victories, and a fifth place finish on the money list. She won two tournaments in 2005 and moved up to third on the money list. Her best finish at a major championship is a tie for second at the 2000 U.S. Women's Open matched by her performance in the 2006 Women's British Open. Her first win of 2006 came at the Franklin American Mortgage Championship where she posted a tournament-record score of 19 under par. To date, Kerr has nine wins on the LPGA Tour.

She was also a member of the United States Solheim Cup team in 2002, 2003 and 2005.

The hallmarks of Kerr's game are putting (she's finished in the top 5 on the LPGA Tour in putts/greens hit in each of the last two seasons) and iron play (she was 5th in greens-in-regulation in 2005). She is also among the longest hitters on the tour, though the other players have caught up to her in recent years. In 2003, Kerr switched to newer Callaway Golf equipment after playing with the same clubs for the previous seven years, and the move coincided with a sharp increase in wins and earnings on tour. In 2005, Kerr finished in the Top 10 in half of the tournaments she entered, and ranked second in the LPGA in scoring average, trailing only Annika Sorenstam.

Kerr is actively involved in fundraising for breast cancer research; her mother was diagnosed with the disease in 2004.

Kerr is 5'4" and now weighs 125 pounds (8 stone 13 pounds; 57 kg), but in 1999 she weighed 175 pounds, a weight that caused her to have back spasms. Her parents, who are divorced, are both diabetics, and her mother had had a heart attack when Kerr was in ninth grade. After her weight had peaked, Kerr began exercising regularly and went on a diet. By 2002, she had lost 50 pounds.

Kerr's reported best friend on tour is Natalie Gulbis, and Donald Trump is an off-course friend, as Kerr made an appearance on an episode of the third edition of NBC's The Apprentice in 2005. She has been engaged twice, but both engagements fell apart. She is now engaged to Erik Stevens, who heads up a company that is developing a sports complex in Brooklyn, New York. Kerr lives in Manhattan on a part-time basis. Mutual of Omaha is Kerr's primary sponsor, and the organization donates money to her breast cancer research foundation as part of her sponsorship. In addition to her Callaway clubs, Kerr uses Titleist Pro V1 brand golf balls, and is also sponsored by FootJoy and clothing manufacturer Lacoste.

Kerr was fifth in the first set of Women's World Golf Rankings, which was released in February 2006.

[edit] LPGA Tour wins

2002 Longs Drugs Challenge
2004 LPGA Takefuji Classic, ShopRite LPGA Classic, State Farm Classic
2005 Michelob ULTRA Open at Kingsmill, Wendy's Championship for Children
2006 Franklin American Mortgage Championship, Canadian Women's Open, John Q. Hammons Hotel Classic

[edit] Results in LPGA majors

Tournament	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000
Kraft Nabisco Championship	DNP	CUT	DNP	DNP	DNP	T35
LPGA Championship	DNP	DNP	CUT	CUT	T5LA	WD
U.S. Women's Open	CUT	T36	DNP	60	CUT	T2
du Maurier Classic	DNP	DNP	CUT	T54	T17	CUT

Tournament	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Kraft Nabisco Championship	T66	T3	T11	T5	T3	T35
LPGA Championship	CUT	T41	T34	T17	T33	T5
U.S. Women's Open	T4	T32	T13	T27	T10	T28
Women's British Open	CUT	T29	T14	T11	T5	T2

DNP = did not play
CUT = missed the half-way cut
LA = Low Amateur
WD = withdrew
"T" = tied
Green background for a win. Yellow background for a top-10 finish.