RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. – Morgan Pressel knows every major championship offers unexpected challenges, but she faced a most awkward one closing out Thursday’s first round at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
With Pressel and Cristie Kerr preparing for birdie putts, an elderly woman collapsed twice at the ropes behind the ninth hole, the twosome’s final hole of the day. After her first fall, the woman rose and leaned against a chair, only to collapse a second time.
Kerr stepped way from a birdie putt the first time the woman collapsed, Pressel was over hers the second time she collapsed and stepped away. Paramedics were called and worked on the woman for three to four minutes as she lay on her back. Pressel and Kerr looked on. When the woman was able to stand, she got an ovation from the gallery there and paramedics walked her away.
“It was scary,” said Pressel, who won the Kraft Nabisco in 2007. “I watched her fall the first time, and I watched her get back up and fall again. I’m glad she’s OK.”
Pressel nearly holed a 12-foot birdie chance after the interruption, grazing the cup on the way to a 1-under-par 71.
