In 2003, Morgan Pressel, then 15, learned too soon what radiology, mastectomy and chemotherapy meant as she watched her mother, Kathryn Krickstein, die of breast cancer at age 43. A year earlier, Cristie Kerr's mother, Linda, was diagnosed with breast cancer but continues to win that persistent battle.
Today, Pressel and Kerr, good friends off the golf course and rivals between the gallery ropes on the LPGA Tour, are passionate breast cancer activists.
Pressel's foundation and annual golf tournament, Morgan & Friends, has raised more than $2 million to provide funding for awareness, detection, treatment and research. Some of the money produced the Kathryn Krickstein Pressel Mammovan, which travels throughout Palm Beach (Fla.) County providing access to early mammograms for people of all financial means.
Kerr also has raised more than $2 million through her foundation, Birdies for Breast Cancer, and her tournament, the Liberty Cup, which she hopes will become an LPGA Tour event one day. In 2010, the Cristie Kerr Women's Health Center opened in Jersey City and became the first comprehensive breast care facility in Hudson County, N.J. Men and women with or without health insurance have received a full range of services -- more than 1,850 mammographies, 1,800 ultrasounds and 400 bone density tests.
It's amazing what we have created in such a short time with just golf, and how remarkable it is that the game can bring large groups of people together who all have one goal in mind -- to raise money to help a good cause.
The two of us were moved to act when our lives were torn apart because of breast cancer, and we both felt we needed to do something to help other women, and men, who unfortunately deal with this horrible disease.
When our mothers were diagnosed we both felt helpless, and we don't like feeling helpless. It is a sense of loss like no other. And we want to do everything we can so others don't have that same feeling. We want to get our stories out, we want to create as much awareness as we can, and out of tragedy, out of suffering, we can create hope in this collective struggle.
This disease has touched the lives of nearly all of us in some way and we all need to take an active role in supporting advances in research and raising awareness so we can vanquish this disease. And all women, without hesitation, should speak with their doctors about breast cancer screenings.
We have a unique platform where we can help so many others, and just sitting idly by and just giving time here and there was just not going to do. We have a responsibility to act. We both dove right in and we now work as hard as we can and make as much of a difference as we can.
Maybe one day people won't have to go through what we have gone through. Maybe one day they will find a cure so boys and girls won't lose their mothers. That is our goal, our hope, and we will continue to work to raise the funds needed, to raise the awareness needed, to attack this disease and find a cure.
Whatever charity an athlete or celebrity backs, it doesn't matter as long as you are giving back, and for both of us, helping others and giving back to our communities drives us. We both take what we do very seriously, and we are more passionate about this than we are about our golf. That's one of the reasons why both of us will continue our work far beyond our golfing careers on the LPGA Tour. The amount of money we raise from our events and our own donations and those donations from friends is remarkable. We can't thank people enough who have supported our efforts.
But our work is not done. And it will not be done until a cure is found.
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
Copyright 2011 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.