Most professional golfers measure success in terms of how many tournaments or how much money they’ve won.
LPGA star Morgan Pressel measures hers in terms of how many lives she’s helped save.
Pressel has used her accomplishments as a golfer to raise money and awareness to fight breast cancer, which claimed the life of her mother, Kathryn, when Pressel was 15.
Her Morgan Pressel Foundation, which hold its ninth annual Morgan & Friends Fight Cancer Tournament on Monday at St. Andrews Country Club, has raised more than $4 million to fight cancer, including more than $750,000 at last year’s event.
Among the reasons for her foundation’s success is Pressel’s talent as a golfer, which first made headlines when she qualified for the Women’s U.S. Open as a 12-year-old in 2001 — the youngest ever at the time — and again in 2007, when at 18 she became the youngest LPGA player to win a major.
There’s also the generosity of St. Andrews residents and sponsors of the foundation’s private tournament, which sold out in mid-December and has a waiting list of players for the first time, to fight a disease that affects, in one way or another, almost everyone.
But the Pressel Foundation’s secret weapon to raise money could be the namesake’s disposition: The 27-year-old Pressel is kind, down-to-earth and approachable, which isn’t always the case among successful pro athletes. And there is that saying about catching more flies with honey than vinegar.
“She just cares so much,” said St. Andrews director of golf Paul Clivio, whose wife, Tara, is the foundation’s only paid employee. “I’ve always said she’s an awesome golfer, but that was a tool for her to be better at something else. I think the members feel that they’re a part of what she’s doing.”
Watching how thoughtfully and graciously she interacts with her fellow competitors, fans and sponsors 26 weeks a year, her caddie Rock Cesarz knows what makes Pressel different.
“She gets it,” said Cesarz, who is beginning his eighth season with Pressel on the LPGA Tour. “I always tell everybody, ‘She gets it.’ She’s matured a lot, but she was mature before I started working with her.”
Pressel said that’s probably because she was taught to play golf at St. Andrews when she was 9 by her grandfather Herb Krickstein.
“I give a lot of credit to this club,” she said. “As a kid, I played with guys that were much older than me. I was a 12-year-old and I was playing with my grandpa’s friends. We’d go out a few times a week, and I learned social skills that other kids my age probably didn’t know because they weren’t being put in those positions.
“It helps me in pro-ams for sure and with life in general. That’s why organizations like the First Tee are so great. They’re getting kids involved in golf not necessarily to teach them golf, but to teach them life skills.”
Because breast cancer impacts so many lives, Pressel made it her goal to find a cure for the disease.
In 2013, Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s Lynn Cancer Institute opened the Morgan Pressel Center for Cancer Genetics, where individual risks for developing certain cancers with hereditary links can be studied.
Money raised by Pressel’s foundation funded the Kathryn Krickstein Mammovan, a mobile unit named for her mother that travels throughout South Florida to provide affordable breast exams and care to those who otherwise might not be able to afford it.
Although she had a great 2015 season, with a playoff loss among her six top-10 finishes, won $962,794 to boost her career earnings to $6.6 million since turning pro in 2006 and was part of the victorious United States Solheim Cup team, Pressel said the record amount raised by her tournament last year was her No. 1 highlight and she’s looking to surpass it.
“Even with the record year we had last year, I think we’re going to blow that out of the water this year, so it’s pretty cool,” said Pressel, adding that St. Andrews members make up 90 percent of the expanded tournament field, with the rest invited guests and corporate groups.
“This last month I haven’t played much golf at all but I haven’t had much down time. There’s been so much work to do with the foundation.”
But in true Pressel fashion, she did make time to play nine holes with Chloe Kovelesky, one of her biggest youngest, fans. The 8-year-old who lives at Boca Woods Country Club with her parents, Tina and Rich, has won three junior world championships.
Ed Rice, the president of the St. Andrews Board of Governors, read an article in the Sun Sentinel about Kovelesky where she said that Pressel was her idol. So Rice thought it would be nice to get the two of them together for some golf.
Rice said when he asked Clivio and St. Andrews general manager Craig Martin about having Kovelesky out to the private club to play nine holes with Pressel, their response was “No problem.”
He got the same response from Pressel.
“When I asked her, she said, ‘Absolutely! I know who Chloe is,’ ” Rice said. “She ended up setting it up herself.”
When Tina Kovelesky got the call, it was too good to be true.
“I don’t have the words for it,” she said. “When I told Chloe, she was excited. She met Morgan two years ago at her Morgan & Friends tournament and fell in love with her immediately.
“I couldn’t thank Morgan enough. She’s an amazing woman. She really is. She has a heart of gold.”
Pressel and Kovelesky both had a blast, high-fiving each other after sinking birdie putts, talking about the homes along the course and having lunch together after they played.
“It was no problem at all,” said Pressel of spending more than three hours with Kovelesky and her parents. “Why not? She’s awesome.”
Which is how people tend to describe Morgan Pressel.
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