NAPLES, Fla., November 19, 2014 – LPGA Tour pros Stacy Lewis, Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel, and Brittany Lincicome will be driving home from the CME Group Tour Championship in their new 2015 Kia K900s after being handed the keys to Kia’s new highly praised luxury sedan as winners of the third-annual Kia Performance Awards for their efforts in statistical, performance and community categories in 2014.
“We know and love the game and we’re honored to be able to recognize the best the game’s had to offer in 2014, four players who have consistently set the bar on-and-off-the course,” said Michael Sprague, executive vice president, sales & marketing, Kia Motors America. “Setting the bar is what we strived for at Kia, and we are incredibly pleased to offer the K900, a luxury sedan fit for a champion, to these deserving four winners.”
For the last three years, the Kia Drive to the Top award has been presented to the player with the most top-10 finishes of the season. And for three straight years now, Stacy Lewis has driven away with the prize.
Lewis has amassed 17 top-10 finishes in the 27 tournaments played through the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, which tied Inbee Park but Lewis broke the tiebreaker with a higher standing on the money list. Michelle Wie joked in July that Lewis was “annoyingly consistent” and the three-time winner of this award has now amassed 52 top 10s in the last three seasons. Lewis has a chance this season to become the first American since Beth Daniel in 1994 to sweep the Vare Trophy, Official Money List title and Rolex Player of the Year honors if she’s able to maintain her lead through the end of the season.
“My goal is to be in contention every week so finishing in the Top 10 consistently is validation of the work I’ve put in,” said Lewis. “I feel blessed to be honored with this award again and I am incredibly grateful to Kia for continuing to be an amazing sponsor for our Tour. I can’t wait to drive my K900.”
The “Putt Heard Around the World” turned out to be the putt that won a luxury K900 sedan for Paula Creamer as she’s been honored with the Kia Most Compelling Performance of 2014. The award is voted on by the fans on LPGA.com and the LPGA’s official Facebook page.
After her competitor, Azahara Munoz, laid up to the par-5 second playoff hole at the HSBC Women’s Champions, Creamer went for it with her second shot, leaving her with a 75-foot eagle putt. She was hoping for a two putt. She got far more, draining the 75-foot eagle and setting off one of the more memorable celebrations in recent memory. The putt snapped a four-year winless drought for her 10th career victory and proved a hole-in-one is not the only miraculous shot fit for a new ride.
“The fans make our game, and to have them vote me for this honor makes this award all the more special,” said Creamer. “Ever since Kia has been a part of our LPGA family, I’ve been taking notice of their cars. I am more and more impressed every yearOther nominees in the Kia Most Compelling Performance category included Karrie Webb, who overcame a five-shot Sunday deficit at the ISPS Handa Australian Women’s Open; Lexi Thompson, who fired a final-round 68 to win the Kraft Nabisco Championship; Stacy Lewis, who ran away with the ShopRite LPGA Classic Presented by Acer by six shots to retake the World No. 1 ranking after 59 weeks; Michelle Wie, who birdied No. 17 at Pinehurst No. 2 to take her first major at the U.S. Women’s Open; Mo Martin, whose second shot hit the flagstick on the par-5 18th en route to making eagle at the Ricoh Women’s British Open; So Yeon Ryu, who fired an opening-round, tournament-record 63 at the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open; and M.J. Hur, who held off a charging Stacy Lewis to win the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic.
Brittany Lincicome won this year’s honors for the Kia Power Drive for frequently turning the teeing ground into a launching pad, smashing drives on average of 271.56 yards on the season. Lincicome narrowly edged out Lexi Thompson’s 270.51 average. This is the second time she’s won the Kia Power Drive, having also won the inaugural award in 2012. In her 10 years on Tour, “Bam Bam” as she’s known by her competitors, has only finished outside of the top three in driving distance one season.
“It’s really neat that Kia continues to give away these beautiful cars for one of the strengths of my game,” said Lincicome. “I was so excited to win the first year and definitely had some extra motivation to win again this season.”
While Morgan Pressel has delivered many memorable moments throughout her career on the golf course, it’s her work off of it that will be her lasting legacy. Pressel is this year’s winner of the Kia Community Assist Award, which is given to the player that makes exceptional contributions to charity organizations and community programs, for her exemplary work raising funds for breast cancer research.
Pressel’s foundation, the Morgan Pressel Foundation, has raised over $3.5 million and was able to help establish the Morgan Pressel Center for Cancer Genetics at the Boca Raton Regional Hospital. In 2010, the foundation purchased the Kathryn Krickstein Pressel Mammovan, named after Pressel’s mother who lost her battle with breast cancer when Morgan was 15. The van travels around the area providing easy access for yearly mammograms. In just four years over 6,000 mammograms have been provided to those who might have not otherwise received one.
““I am extremely honored to be the recipient of the 2014 KIA Community Assist Award,” said Pressel. “The opportunity to give back to my community, both personally through the Morgan Pressel Foundation, and as a member of the LPGA Tour is one of the most important and rewarding elements of my career. Every year during my Morgan & Friends event I continue to be humbled and amazed at how the St. Andrew’s Country Club community rallies around my family and the causes close to my heart. I would like to thank my community, partners, family, friends and fellow LPGA professionals who donate their time each year at our event for helping make this possible.”
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