01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 28, 2006

The names are on the tip of everyone's tongue. Creamer. Pressel. Gulbis. Miyazato. Wie.

Each owns great talent at a precocious young age. Each has contended in a major championship, but no one more so than Brittany Lang. As a member of the newly minted NCAA champions at Duke, Lang qualified for last summer's U.S. Open at Cherry Hills. She proceeded to shoot a 69 and was tied for first place after the first round. She entered Sunday tied for 12th and in need of a miracle round to contend for the championship.

The McKinney, Texas, native almost pulled off that miracle. She bogeyed the 18th hole to shoot an even-par 71 and end her first Open with a plus-5 total of 289. While sitting in the clubhouse, Lang watched Korean star Birdie Kim chip in from a bunker at the 18th hole and clinch the title with a two-stroke victory. That swing cost Lang at least a chance at a playoff for the U.S. Open, but she was simply happy to find herself in contention.

"I looked at the leaderboard on the back side just to see if my name was anywhere up there, and it was up there. That's all I needed to know," Lang said.

The fact that Pressel, then 17, tied the 19-year-old Lang for second told the golf world that the young guns definitely were for real. Lang turned pro later in the summer after just two years at Duke and has played very well in her rookie year on the LPGA Tour.

"I was thinking that the scores are going to get lower every year," Lang said after last year's Open. "I think it's going to get very tough. When all these amateurs get out here, they'll have a lot of fight in them, so I think it's going to be very tough."

Lang, who has played at Newport in the past through a connection with several Rhode Island friends, has the game to contend this year, as well. In her first full season as a pro, she finished tied for eighth at the Kraft Nabisco (a women's major) and then finished tied for third last week in Rochester, where she shot 66-71-69-71 and won a season-high $106,791.

Lang is the leader of a large group of Duke stars here in Newport. The eight include current stars Amanda Blumenhurst and Jennie Lee, May graduate Liz Janangelo and recent grads Virada Nirapathpongporn, Kristina Tucker, Beth Bauer and Candy Hannemann.

With odds like that, it's a good bet that a Blue Devil will be in the mix come Sunday.

-- KEVIN McNAMARA