WEST PALM BEACH (Florida) - HOURS after becoming one of eight qualifiers for the final round of the ADT Championship, Paula Creamer was admitted to Bethedsa Memorial Hospital in Boynton Beach because of severe abdominal distress on Saturday.

She will stay there overnight, and 'a decision as to whether or not she plays (Sunday's) round will be made on early morning,' said Mr Jay Burton, the senior vice-president of IMG, which represents Creamer.

She began experiencing sharp stomach pains late on Wednesday and they haven't subsided much since.

Creamer cut her usual 90-minute warm-up to a half-hour to conserve energy, and hasn't been able to eat solid food for three days except for nibbling on dry toast and bagels during her round on Saturday.

At times during the third round, Creamer would hit a shot, then double over in pain for seconds.

'The best position for me is hunched over,' Creamer said at the course.

'I'm not a big complainer, but one more day - that's what I keep telling myself.'

Creamer shot 70 to become one of the last eight for the final round, where they will all start tied at par when they embark on an 18-hole shootout for the US$1 million (S$1.53 million) winner's prize at Trump International.

If Creamer tees off and wins the season-ending event that'll probably be best remembered as Annika Sorenstam's presumed finale on the US LPGA Tour, not only will she nudge Lorena Ochoa by US$41,457 for the tour money crown, she'll become the first US-born money champion since Betsy King in 1993.

'Money title or not, I want to win this event,' Creamer said.

Ochoa earned US$8,000 this week, but didn't qualify for the weekend rounds. A victory would push Creamer just over US$2.8 million for 2008; King won US$595,992 when she took the cash crown.

Suzann Pettersen put together the best round on Saturday with a 4-under 68, shaking off a triple-bogey at the par-4 fourth with almost flawless golf the rest of the way.

Pettersen got back to even by the seventh, then ensured her spot in Sunday's field with four straight birdies on holes 13-16.

Considering she made two birdies in the first two rounds combined, an eight-birdie on Saturday surely did oodles for her confidence.

'I still think the best golf for me this week is ahead of me,' said Pettersen, who has three second-place finishes in 2008 but no wins, after claiming five titles a year ago.

Angela Stanford shot 69, one shot back of Pettersen, to earn her spot in Sunday's dash for the cash, which was displayed in a clear plastic box, with 10,000 bills - all US$100s - neatly bundled. Seon Hwa Lee shot 70, and Ji-Yai Shin and Jeong Jang were another shot back.

A three-way playoff decided the final two spots: Karrie Webb and Eun Hee Jee advanced when Sun Young Yoo three-putted the par-3 17th.

Webb and Creamer are the only players to reach all three final rounds of the ADT since it adopted the eight-player, erase-the-previous-scores Sunday format in 2006. Neither has finished better than third.

If course knowledge counts for anything, it'll help Webb. She's a regular at Trump International, albeit under far different conditions.

'It's almost, sometimes, I think a disadvantage that I play here so much, because it doesn't play the way it does when I play it the other 99 per cent of the time,' Webb said.

Katherine Hull, the leader after the first and second rounds, started with four bogeys in her first six holes on Saturday.

If this was a normal week, she'd have been tied for fifth at that point, but instead was quickly dropping well out of contention to even play Sunday.

Hull chipped in for birdie at the par-3 11th, but wound up shooting 79 after going 4 over on her final three holes.

Stiff winds made a tough course even harder. Karen Stupples putted four times for triple-bogey at the par-4 16th, then tossed her ball into the water out of frustration on her way to a 77.

In-Kyung Kim shot 80, and Helen Alfredsson made triple-bogey at 18 to shoot 74, which meant par at the finishing hole would have sent her to Sunday. -- AP