Erica Blasberg's Death Shrouded in Mystery

The world of golf is reeling from the sudden death of one the game's up-and-coming stars, Erica Blasberg, who was found dead in her home in Henderson, Nev., a Las Vegas suburb.

She was 25, and would have turned 26 next month.

And, as "Early Show" national correspondent Hattie Kauffman reports, the cause of her death remains unclear.

Blasberg, says Kauffman, was a promising pro who seemed to have it all. She was a standout at the University of Arizona, and on the women's pro golf tour, she became a darling of photographers.

Everyone is in shock, from her family, to the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

But Sunday afternoon, a 911 call brought police to Blasberg's home, where they found her body. They won't say how she died, or who made that 911 call.

Vegas police say it could be weeks before an official cause of death is known, and they're probing everything from foul play to suicide.

"Something, something happened," says her father, Mel Blasberg. "This is devastating. I mean, you don't want to have to bury a 25 year old daughter. It's sad."

Blasberg's agent says she had her bags packed to head for a tournament in Alabama.

Recently, Kauffman points out, she had struggled on the course.

Blasberg earned $113,000 on the LPGA tour in 2008. Last year, she made only $26,000. This year, she competed in just one tournament, an event last week in Mexico. She finished 44th.

Still, her father says, there were no signs of any trouble. "She did everything right," Mel Blasberg observed, "and she's not immune to the pressures of golf; she's not immune to the pressures of life. … This is a story about how you raise a kid and they came out OK. And now, something happened and we have to find out what it is."

One of Erica's close friends, Shane Bacon, a writer for Yahoo Sports and a college classmate. told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Wednesday, "It's been pretty confusing for everybody. And we're basically, myself and her family and her friends -- we're really just trying to focus on her as a person, because there's nothing we can really do right now with what happened. Because, you know, we're not going to find anything out. And, you know, we're just trying to kind of praise her. Because she really was, you know, a great person and she was, you know, people really enjoyed her and she, you know, she obviously left us a little too soon."

Bacon said Erica "was super-competitive in the ropes (on the course). … She wanted to play well. But, she had a really unique ability of being able to kind of let golf go when she left the golf course. You know, we'd get in the car, on the drive back and talk about the round, if it, you know, what we did wrong here, what we did well there. She was a golfer. She was an athlete. And I think that, you know, you could see the competitive side, what she wanted to be as a pro, after her amateur career. And you know, she never reached that potential. But, you know, she did have some spots where she played really well."

How upset was she that she wasn't really living up to her apparent potential?

"Anybody that doesn't live up to the level that they see for themselves gets frustrated," Bacon admitted, "but, it was more one of those where she -- she knew that she could get there. And I think that she was working to get there. I talked to one of her fellow pros (Tuesday) night on the phone, and you know, she said that -- a couple weeks ago in Mexico, when she finished 44th, she said Erica was as happy about her golf game as she'd been in awhile. So, she was really excited about, you know, playing this year and getting out there and having some good finishes and getting in some of the tournaments she knew she could get into."

And the potential was there, for sure, Bacon told Smith, recalling that, "She came on the scene as a freshman and basically dominated like something we'd never seen. You know, she won six tournaments in two years. But, you know, she was just always fun. I mean, it was fun writing about her. And that's kind of how our relationship spawned. But, she was just an athlete who enjoyed the game, enjoyed college, enjoyed life, and was just a sweetheart that basically everybody that was around her really, really loved.