Paula Creamer still plays with a bandage. What she no longer plays with is a burden. Even though Creamer won't turn 24 until a week from Thursday, after she returns from Royal Birkdale.

And the final LPGA Tour major of the year, few other players so young have received so much scrutiny for failing to win a major.

At least that's one question she won't face this week at the Women's British Open. "No, I'm sure it will be, 'Do you want to win two in a row?'"

Creamer said with an easy laugh just four days after her U.S. Women's Open victory at Oakmont. "I feel like my whole career, it's always been about majors," she said.

"That was the one thing I didn't have. And now that I do, I only want more. It's like opening a can of worms. I can't wait to play the British Open, because I know what it takes to win."

Creamer endured some tough lessons along the way.Three times she was poised to win the U.S. Open, the biggest stage in her sport, only to fall apart with bad swings or a bad decision.

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Carl Pettersson  thought he had missed the weekend cut moments after finishing the second round of the Canadian Open at 1 under. Two days later, he was celebrating his fourth PGA Tour title. "I walked in the locker room and (fellow player) Jay Williamson had all the scenarios written out, and he's like, `Grab a beer.'" Pettersson said. "Before you know it, I'd had seven beers. Made the cut. And my caddie had to drive me home. I wasn't in that bad of shape, but I didn't want to drive. I can usually handle seven beers."

Pettersson moved into contention Saturday with a tournament-record 60, then closed with a 3-under 67 on Sunday to beat playing partner Dean Wilson by a stroke.

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St. George's Golf and Country Club is a straightforward course. "If you're driving the ball on the fairway, you can score," Canadian star Mike Weir said Friday, after missing the cut in the Canadian Open. "If you're hitting it where I was, you can't. You can't score from the rough."

For players able to consistently hit the narrow fairways, the hilly, tree-lined course was there for the taking for the second straight day. "Driving the fairway is a huge key on the course and I've done that," said Tim Clark, tied for the lead with Dean Wilson at 10 under. Clark shot a bogey-free 6-under 64.

"I certainly didn't expect to be scoring like that around this course," Clark said. "I felt like it was going to be pretty tough."Wilson had his second straight 65 to match Clark, the South African who won The Players Championship in May for his first PGA Tour title.

Weir, fighting tendinitis in his right arm, missed the cut for the 12th time in 20 Canadian Open starts, following his opening 72 with a 74.

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Brent Delahoussaye shot an 8-under 62 on Thursday to match the Canadian Open record, making an eagle, seven birdies and a bogey in perfect scoring conditions at historic St. George's. Delahoussaye, the 29-year-old former Clemson player whose lone professional victory came in the 2006 Hooters Tour Classic, teed off on the ninth hole and played the front nine his first and last eight holes in 6-under 28.

Four other players have shot 62s in the Canadian Open, the first three at Glen Abbey. Leonard Thompson set the mark in 1981, Andy Bean matched it in 1983, both at a par of 71, and Greg Norman did it in 1986, when par was 72. Hunter Mahan had a 9-under 62 at Angus Glen in 2007. Delahoussaye also broke the course record of 64 set by Canadian George Knudson in 1968.

Mike Weir escaped the usual talk about the long home drought in the Canadian Open, fielding questions instead about his sore right arm and historic St. George's Golf and Country Club. Trying to become the first Canadian winner in 56 years and first Canadian-born champion in 96 years, the 40-year-old Weir skipped the final three holes in his pro-am round Wednesday to get treatment for tendinitis.

"It started bugging me a little bit last week at the British Open," the left-hander said. "I put a little brace on it Monday when we played, and that seemed to do the trick pretty well. I kind of took it easy just hit probably 20, 30 balls yesterday.

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Tiger Woods was all over the leaderboard at the British Open. Too bad this was on a Monday. Locals roam the Old Course all the time on the most public of major championship properties, which King David I of Scotland granted to the people of St. Andrews way back in 1123. But some of them did more than walk their dogs in the late evening and early morning hours after Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open.

The letters and numbers on the scoreboard along the 13th hole were rearranged to show someone named Rob Rixon at 9 under. He was joined on the board with Tiger Woods, who was listed at 99 over.

Even more telling of the respect the world's No. 1 player gets these days was the large yellow-and-blue scoreboard atop the grandstand to the left of the 18th fairway. Most of the letters were still in place for the annual message, "Well played Louis." But instead of "See you at Sandwich in 2011" for the next Open, it read "Shaggy Woods."

Woods was expecting a warm reception at the home of golf, where he had won the claret jug the past two times, and there were no surprises. It's been that way for the last few months. Aside from the tentative applause when he first showed his face to fans on a golf course that Monday at Augusta National, he still gets the biggest gallery and loudest cheers.

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The South Africans have a new soundtrack of success. The drone of the vuvuzela has been succeeded by the skirl of the bagpipe. One week after beaming in pride at its historic hosting of soccer's World Cup, the nation torn apart by apartheid just a generation ago had another reason to stick out its chest: Louis Oosthuizen won the British Open in a dominating romp. On Nelson Mandela's 92nd birthday, no less.

A white Afrikaner with a black caddie on his bag crossed over the Swilcan Bridge, tapped in the last putt and lifted the claret jug.

Oosthuizen (WUHST'-hy-zen) just wanted to celebrate the moment with family and friends. Others realized there was something more significant going on at the Old Course, another instance of sports transcending a societal divide.

"It's fantastic," said Gary Player, the most prominent golfer to come out of South Africa. "Wonderful things are happening to South Africa. I went back for the final match of the World Cup, and they did a way better job than people imagined.

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Rocco Mediate can expect something special in the mail this week from longtime friend Matt Bettencourt. Bettencourt said much of the credit for his one-stroke victory at the Reno-Tahoe Open on Sunday — his first PGA Tour win — goes to Mediate's regular caddie Matthew Achatz, who carried Bettencourt's bags this week while Mediate was working as a TV analyst at the British Open.

"Thank you, Rocco, for letting me use him," Bettencourt said. "He kept me so relaxed all week and really made me believe in myself and my ability."

"He's seen it all. He went toe-to-toe with Tiger at Torrey Pines a few years ago," he said about Woods' victory over Mediate in a playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open. "So it was great to have him step in this week, and thanks to Rocco for being over at the British Open and commentating.

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British Amateur champion Jin Jeong has found St. Andrews more to his liking Saturday. Jeong was among 30 players to returned to the Old Course to complete a wind-swept second round, and he birdied the 18th hole to complete a remarkable 2-under 70.

Louis Oosthuizen (WUHST'-hy-zen) of South Africa holds a comfortable 36-hole lead, five shots clear of the field with a 12-under 137. His closest challenger is 50-year-old Mark Calcavecchia, the latest old-timer to challenge for the claret jug.

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The American, who has missed eight cuts in his last 10 events, had six birdies in his opening 13 holes at the Montreux Golf and Country Club. His first bogey of the day came at the 16th but he bounced back immediately to eagle the par-five 17th. And, although he finished with another bogey, Bettencourt's six-under effort was enough to put him at the head of the leaderboard.

Former Masters and Open runner up Chris DiMarco is one back after a 67 that included six birdies and just one dropped shot. "Obviously I still feel like I can win out here," said DiMarco, who has not had a top 10 on the PGA Tour since 2008.