lethal
03-01-2003, 12:41 PM
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/go...olf/5258079.htm (http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/golf/5258079.htm)
Long-hitting Wie has drive to succeed on all levels of golf
By MIKE KERN
kernm@phillynews.com
THE LATEST "Next Tiger Woods" can drive a golf ball nearly 300 yards.
The latest NTW has pictures of Tiger all over the bedroom wall and hopes to go to Stanford University, just like the original.
The latest NTW stands 5-11, and wears men's size 9 ½ shoes.
The latest NTW wants to play on the PGA Tour one day.
The latest NTW, who doesn't like going to the mall, spends 4 hours a day during the week and 7 hours a day on the weekends working on the game.
The latest NTW left some PGA Tour players watching in awe on the practice range at a recent tournament stop.
The latest NTW is 13 years old, is in the eighth grade and happens to be a female.
So welcome to Michelle Wie's world. Coming soon, to a center stage near you.
Those who have seen her play are convinced they have seen the future.
We've heard that before, of course. Almost every year, it seems, there's another NTW on the horizon. This time, though, it could be different. This time, it might be more than just wishful hype.
Wie (pronounced WEE) is probably the biggest youth sensation to hit the sport since Tiger appeared on "The Mike Douglas Show" when he was barely out of diapers. She's already a celebrity in her native Hawaii. After competing in the pro-am at the PGA's season-opening Mercedes Championships with Shigeki Maruyama, she was the one getting the bulk of the autograph requests at Maui's Kapalua Resort.
The following week, she tried to qualify for the PGA Tour's Sony Open in Honolulu, where she lives. Wie shot a 1-over-par 73 from the championship tees at the 6,787-yard Pearl Country Club, to tie for 47th against 96 men. Before the tournament, she played in a Pro-Junior Golf Challenge at Waialae Country Club. As she warmed up alongside the pros for the six-hole exhibition, guess who drew the most attention?
"You watch her swing and say, 'That's normal.' Then you realize she's only 13, and that's unbelievable," said Vijay Singh, who played in Wie's group. "She plays like an 18-year-old. She's going to be a star."
It has become a familiar reaction.
"The way she's going, with all that poise, she could make it through [the PGA Tour qualifying] school one of these days," Jerry Kelly, her pro partner at Waialae, told Golf World magazine. "She's on a road that I don't think any woman has traveled, and it's pretty cool to watch."
When they were done playing, Kelly - who finished sixth on last season's PGA money list - went over to the standard-bearer's sign, took out the strip of plastic with their names on it and asked Michelle to sign.
Three months ago, at the 2002 Hawaii State Open, the "Big Wiesy" - so nicknamed by Tom Lehman, who felt she bears an uncanny resemblance to "Big Easy" Ernie Els - shot 8-under par for three rounds, to beat every guy in the field. She did, of course, play the course from roughly 6,200 yards, or 10 percent shorter than the men. But she still finished 13 ahead of the next woman, LPGA veteran Cindy Rarick.
Several weeks ago, she finished 43rd in the 54-hole Hawaii Pearl Open, in a field of 192, despite closing with a 77 for an 8-over 224. She was the only female in the tournament, and the youngest overall. She walked with a slight limp the last 2 days, the result of bees stinging her left ankle during the first round.
"It was really sore," she said.
She will get other chances. Last year she played in three LPGA events and missed the cut each time. She already has received her four allotted sponsors exemptions for this season, including next month's Nabisco Championships, the first major of the year. She also will be at the ShopRite Classic in late June at the Jersey Shore.
Envision the possibilities.
Along with trying to qualify for the U.S. Women's Open, the U.S. Women's Amateur (at Philadelphia Country Club in early August) and U.S. Junior Girls' Championship, Wie plans to enter the U.S. Amateur Public Links, which offers an exemption to the Masters for the winner. That tournament will be held in mid-July at Blue Heron Pines in Galloway Township, N.J.
She says a spot in the Masters is her "ultimate goal."
"I think it's something I could do," said Wie, talking by phone from Honolulu recently before heading out the door to school. "It would be great if I could do it. It's hard to say what is realistic. I don't think it's overwhelming.
"It's nice, when people say all these things about you. It's fun. But sometimes, you get nervous. You just try to concentrate on your game. I just have to try to keep getting better."
Hey, her braces are scheduled to come off in March. Even though Wie says boys are "kind of annoying," she's still barely a teen-ager.
Hopefully, at least, for a little while longer.
Like Woods, she's the product of a middle-class environment. Her father, BJ, is a professor of transportation at the University of Hawaii. Her mother, Bo, is a real estate agent. Bo came to this country from Korea, where she won that country's women's amateur title. They married in 1988 in Los Angeles and promptly moved to Hawaii, where their only child was born a year later.
Wie started playing at age 4, but her parents gave up the game when she was 9 because it had become too expensive.
Michelle says she played baseball and soccer, swam and participated in gymnastics. She even tried piano and ballet.
"But I was really bad in the other sports," she said, laughing.
The sports pages are littered with horror stories, of prodigies who never even came close to fulfilling all the promise. Perhaps Wie is just another victim waiting to implode.
Or maybe she's truly destined to be a chosen one.
"She simply enjoys all the attention," her father stressed. "She's not distracted by it. I think it makes her work harder.
"As long as she does well in school, gets along with her friends and keeps a balance in her life, I think she'll be fine. So far, so good. She has the capability to do something very unusual.
"It may happen that she loses interest in golf and pursues another career. She actually told me that she might be a teacher, or a professor or an animal doctor. She keeps changing. But I really think that right now she wants to be the best at what she's doing."
As always, time will supply the ultimate answer. But for the foreseeable future, what she's already accomplished is more than enough to ponder the upside.
Said Wie: "I have really high goals. It's not going to be easy. I might achieve them, or I might just achieve some of them. But I really think I'm going to give it my all, then see what happens. It's worth looking forward to. It's really cool, because I would like to be the next something."
Or maybe even the first Michelle Wie. That wouldn't be so bad, either.
Long-hitting Wie has drive to succeed on all levels of golf
By MIKE KERN
kernm@phillynews.com
THE LATEST "Next Tiger Woods" can drive a golf ball nearly 300 yards.
The latest NTW has pictures of Tiger all over the bedroom wall and hopes to go to Stanford University, just like the original.
The latest NTW stands 5-11, and wears men's size 9 ½ shoes.
The latest NTW wants to play on the PGA Tour one day.
The latest NTW, who doesn't like going to the mall, spends 4 hours a day during the week and 7 hours a day on the weekends working on the game.
The latest NTW left some PGA Tour players watching in awe on the practice range at a recent tournament stop.
The latest NTW is 13 years old, is in the eighth grade and happens to be a female.
So welcome to Michelle Wie's world. Coming soon, to a center stage near you.
Those who have seen her play are convinced they have seen the future.
We've heard that before, of course. Almost every year, it seems, there's another NTW on the horizon. This time, though, it could be different. This time, it might be more than just wishful hype.
Wie (pronounced WEE) is probably the biggest youth sensation to hit the sport since Tiger appeared on "The Mike Douglas Show" when he was barely out of diapers. She's already a celebrity in her native Hawaii. After competing in the pro-am at the PGA's season-opening Mercedes Championships with Shigeki Maruyama, she was the one getting the bulk of the autograph requests at Maui's Kapalua Resort.
The following week, she tried to qualify for the PGA Tour's Sony Open in Honolulu, where she lives. Wie shot a 1-over-par 73 from the championship tees at the 6,787-yard Pearl Country Club, to tie for 47th against 96 men. Before the tournament, she played in a Pro-Junior Golf Challenge at Waialae Country Club. As she warmed up alongside the pros for the six-hole exhibition, guess who drew the most attention?
"You watch her swing and say, 'That's normal.' Then you realize she's only 13, and that's unbelievable," said Vijay Singh, who played in Wie's group. "She plays like an 18-year-old. She's going to be a star."
It has become a familiar reaction.
"The way she's going, with all that poise, she could make it through [the PGA Tour qualifying] school one of these days," Jerry Kelly, her pro partner at Waialae, told Golf World magazine. "She's on a road that I don't think any woman has traveled, and it's pretty cool to watch."
When they were done playing, Kelly - who finished sixth on last season's PGA money list - went over to the standard-bearer's sign, took out the strip of plastic with their names on it and asked Michelle to sign.
Three months ago, at the 2002 Hawaii State Open, the "Big Wiesy" - so nicknamed by Tom Lehman, who felt she bears an uncanny resemblance to "Big Easy" Ernie Els - shot 8-under par for three rounds, to beat every guy in the field. She did, of course, play the course from roughly 6,200 yards, or 10 percent shorter than the men. But she still finished 13 ahead of the next woman, LPGA veteran Cindy Rarick.
Several weeks ago, she finished 43rd in the 54-hole Hawaii Pearl Open, in a field of 192, despite closing with a 77 for an 8-over 224. She was the only female in the tournament, and the youngest overall. She walked with a slight limp the last 2 days, the result of bees stinging her left ankle during the first round.
"It was really sore," she said.
She will get other chances. Last year she played in three LPGA events and missed the cut each time. She already has received her four allotted sponsors exemptions for this season, including next month's Nabisco Championships, the first major of the year. She also will be at the ShopRite Classic in late June at the Jersey Shore.
Envision the possibilities.
Along with trying to qualify for the U.S. Women's Open, the U.S. Women's Amateur (at Philadelphia Country Club in early August) and U.S. Junior Girls' Championship, Wie plans to enter the U.S. Amateur Public Links, which offers an exemption to the Masters for the winner. That tournament will be held in mid-July at Blue Heron Pines in Galloway Township, N.J.
She says a spot in the Masters is her "ultimate goal."
"I think it's something I could do," said Wie, talking by phone from Honolulu recently before heading out the door to school. "It would be great if I could do it. It's hard to say what is realistic. I don't think it's overwhelming.
"It's nice, when people say all these things about you. It's fun. But sometimes, you get nervous. You just try to concentrate on your game. I just have to try to keep getting better."
Hey, her braces are scheduled to come off in March. Even though Wie says boys are "kind of annoying," she's still barely a teen-ager.
Hopefully, at least, for a little while longer.
Like Woods, she's the product of a middle-class environment. Her father, BJ, is a professor of transportation at the University of Hawaii. Her mother, Bo, is a real estate agent. Bo came to this country from Korea, where she won that country's women's amateur title. They married in 1988 in Los Angeles and promptly moved to Hawaii, where their only child was born a year later.
Wie started playing at age 4, but her parents gave up the game when she was 9 because it had become too expensive.
Michelle says she played baseball and soccer, swam and participated in gymnastics. She even tried piano and ballet.
"But I was really bad in the other sports," she said, laughing.
The sports pages are littered with horror stories, of prodigies who never even came close to fulfilling all the promise. Perhaps Wie is just another victim waiting to implode.
Or maybe she's truly destined to be a chosen one.
"She simply enjoys all the attention," her father stressed. "She's not distracted by it. I think it makes her work harder.
"As long as she does well in school, gets along with her friends and keeps a balance in her life, I think she'll be fine. So far, so good. She has the capability to do something very unusual.
"It may happen that she loses interest in golf and pursues another career. She actually told me that she might be a teacher, or a professor or an animal doctor. She keeps changing. But I really think that right now she wants to be the best at what she's doing."
As always, time will supply the ultimate answer. But for the foreseeable future, what she's already accomplished is more than enough to ponder the upside.
Said Wie: "I have really high goals. It's not going to be easy. I might achieve them, or I might just achieve some of them. But I really think I'm going to give it my all, then see what happens. It's worth looking forward to. It's really cool, because I would like to be the next something."
Or maybe even the first Michelle Wie. That wouldn't be so bad, either.