Wie will, Wie will rock you

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/08/2010 (5755 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NORTH PLAINS, Ore. — Say what you will about Michelle Wie’s lopsided ratio of publicity to performance.

There’s a reason golf fans are fixated on the 20-year-old phenom’s every move.

Watch her tall, thin, frame with a huge swing arc smash ball after ball on the range and it doesn’t take a lot of scientific data gathering to know most LPGA Tour rivals won’t be keeping up with her.

During Wednesday’s Safeway Classic pro-am at the Ghost Creek course at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, Wie took yet another mighty lash, this time from the par-5 10th tee.

The oohs and aahs were immediate from the two dozen or so spectators assembled for the launch.

Wie gave a polite wave, no doubt thinking to herself that some fans just love the force of her contact but that this particular instance wasn’t that pleasing.

That’s because the ball one-hopped into a left-side fairway bunker… 305 yards from the tee.

Wie, who shot an even-par 72 in Friday’s first round of the Safeway Classic just outside Portland, rang up a 297-and-a-half yard driving average for Day 1. She is ranked No. 2 in distance on tour this year, at 272.2 yards, barely behind Tamie Durdin.

Length, however, does not solve everything in golf. Wie’s career game plan to this point has invited plenty of skepticism, mostly because of her attempts to play against men starting in 2003.

Since then, she has played 12 times in men’s tour events, including PGA, Nationwide, European, Canadian, Japanese. Her only made cut as an Asian Tour event in Korea.

Since showing such promise by Monday qualifying for an LPGA event at the age of 12, making the cut at her first LPGA major, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, at 13 in 2003, and then taking that year’s USGA women’s public links title, there was a long dry spell.

Wins were non-existent, which made Wie realize what a priority her fans were.

“The fans, the crowds, that is fun,” Wie said in a conversation with the Free Press this week. “It’s great that people actually want my autograph. When that stops happening, it won’t be good.

“I really enjoy that, enjoy having my fans around. I feel like their support gets me through tough times. They’ve been really there for me, so I’m really thankful.”

Wie had variable progress against men and women after her 2003 publinx win. But a player who once shot 64 as a 10-year-old, the same year she became the youngest player to qualify for a USGA event, had to settle for consolation prizes and moral victories until a breakthrough in 2009.

That’s when she starred for the U.S. at the Solheim Cup as captain’s pick, going 3-0-1 in the home team’s victory over Europe.

It wasn’t all that surprising, considering Wie had six LPGA top-10’s in 2009 prior to the matches. And it was a sign of things to come, as Wie finally broke through at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in November, scoring her first tour victory.

“That win, it was a lot of fun,” she said. “That was so amazing and I was just really happy about it.”

So far, 2010 hasn’t been as much as a setback as it’s been finding her way as a regular LPGA member, maturing and learning to compete. No longer a teenager, it’s clear she has turned her focus to excelling against women before there’s any further thought of challenging the men.

In 13 starts heading into this week’s Safeway Classic, her best 2010 finish has been third, and recent weeks have yielded only indifferent golf.

Still, her No. 12 standing in the Rolex Rankings tells you she’s played well enough to be a factor many weeks.

“I feel like I haven’t been playing as well as I want to,” Wie said. “But it’s been fun. I think I’m getting better and better every week. I feel ready, so hopefully I can get things together and pull through.

“I’ve been out here for a long time but it’s been fun. All the girls are very nice, very welcoming and I have a lot of good friends, so that makes it fun.”

The Canadian Open will mark the fourth year in a row Wie has made the trip north of the border. She missed the cut last year in Calgary.

She bashfully admitted this week that not only has she never been to Winnipeg, but that she’d never heard of it until the Open was scheduled for St. Charles.

Wie said she has talked to Canadian Lorie Kane to get a scouting report on next week’s venue.

“I talked to Lorie about it and she said it’s a really nice golf course,” Wie said. “I’m really excited. I love going up to Canada. I feel like it’s a really relaxing place; everywhere’s really nice. So I’m really excited and I always look forward to the Canadian Women’s Open.

“I had a good time there last year. Every year I go back, it’s a lot of fun. I’ll be really excited to see the golf course. Hopefully the weather will be good.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca