Michelle Wie (born October 11, 1989) is a professional American golfer who has gained attention for her long drives and her attempts to make a cut at a men’s PGA Tour event.
Early years
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, of Korean descent, she began playing the game of golf at the age of four. In 2000, at the age of ten, she became the youngest player to qualify for a USGA amateur championship when she made the field, and qualified for match play, at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship. In that event, the field is cut to 64 after two rounds of stroke play. Two years later, she would be a semifinalist at the same event, the youngest player to ever do so. She attended Star of the Sea Elementary school followed later by Punahou School.
In 2002, Wie became the youngest player to qualify for an LPGA event, the Takefuji Classic. In 2003, she shot a 66 in a round at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, tying the amateur record for a women’s major championship. She also won the Women’s Amateur Public Links in 2003, becoming the youngest person ever to win a USGA event for adults. On January 15, 2004, Michelle Wie became only the fourth female, and the youngest ever, to play in an event on the main U.S.-based men’s golf tour, the PGA TOUR, at the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club near Diamond Head in Hawaii. She shot rounds of 72 and 68 to finish at even par, missing the cut by one stroke. The same year she also became the first amateur to receive a special exemption to the US Women’s Open, a decision which led to some division in the women’s golf community. The invitation was based on her theoretical position on the money list, which would have given her automatic qualification had she been a professional. She finished tied for 13th place in the tournament.
Wie was named to the U.S. team for the 2004 Curtis Cup, a team golf competition similar to the Ryder Cup, in which amateur female players from the U.S. and Great Britain compete. She became the youngest woman ever to compete in the Curtis Cup as the U.S. team went on to win. She also finished fourth in the 2004 Kraft Nabisco Championship, finishing four shots behind winner Grace Park. If she had played the 2004 season as a professional, she would have earned over a quarter of a million dollars from her tournament results alone, but as an amateur she was not allowed to earn money for playing.
2005: Turning pro
Wie had long attracted attention from male pro golfers who remarked not just on her height but on the length she was able to drive the ball and the form of her golf swing. The 6 ft 1 in (1.86 m) Wie, at the age of 16, has an average drive of about 280 yards, about 10 yards farther than the 5-foot, 6-inch Sörenstam’s average and only slightly behind the average on the PGA TOUR. Ernie Els once said, “Give her another couple years to get stronger, she can play on the PGA TOUR.” Her size and use of Els as a model have led sports media to call her The Big Wiesy, a play on Els’ nickname of The Big Easy. Fred Couples said, “When you see her hit a golf ball ¦ there’s nothing that prepares you for it. It’s just the scariest thing you’ve ever seen.” As to Wie’s potential impact on the sport, Arnold Palmer stated in 2003 that “she’s probably going to influence the golfing scene as much as Tiger, or more. She’s going to attract people that even Tiger didn’t attract, young people, both boys and girls, and families.”
Entering 2005, the speculation wasn’t if Wie would turn professional, but when.
She started her 2005 season on the LPGA Tour with the best performance of her career, finishing second at the SBS Open at Turtle Bay. That June she placed second at the LPGA Championship, one of the women’s majors. A few days later, she became the first female golfer to qualify for a USGA national men’s tournament, when she tied for first place in a 36-hole qualifier for the U.S. Amateur Public Links. At the U.S. Women’s Open, she finished the third round in a three-way tie for the lead, but dropped severely after scorring an 82 in the final round, and finished tied for 23. The week after, she played in the John Deere Classic in her third attempt to make the cut at a PGA Tour event, and missed the cut by two strokes after a double-bogey and bogey on successive holes late in the second round.
Immediately after the John Deere, Wie played in the men’s Public Links, making the top 64 in the stroke play rounds to qualify for match play and losing in the quarterfinals to the eventual champion. The week after the Public Links, she went to France to play in the Evian Masters, a major on the Ladies European Tour and a regular LPGA event. She finished in a tie for second with Lorena Ochoa, behind 18-year-old rookie pro Paula Creamer. The week after, she finished tied for third at the Women’s British Open, the fourth and final major of the year, which also marked her last tournament before returning to high school.
After the Women’s British Open, she had played in seven LPGA events in 2005. If she had been a professional, her actual finishes would have given her earnings of 663,178 USD, which at that time of the season would have placed her eighth on the 2005 money list. [1]
On October 5, 2005, less than a week before her 16th birthday, Wie announced in Hawaii that she was turning professional, reportedly signing sponsorship contracts with Nike and Sony worth more than 10,000,000 USD per year. She also announced that she would pledge 500,000 USD to the victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
Professional career
Wie played her first event as a professional in the limited-field Samsung World Championship, an LPGA event open only to 20 top professional players. Wie was invited to participate while still an amateur on a sponsor’s exemption. The four-day, no-cut tournament was played at Palm Desert, California from October 13 through 16, 2005. Annika Sörenstam won the tournament by an 8 stroke margin over Paula Creamer. Wie scored rounds of 70, 65, 71 and 74 and was initially credited with a fourth place finish, which would have earned her approximately US$ 53,000. However, shortly after signing her scorecard, rules officials were alerted by a reporter to a possible infraction of the rules on the seventh hole of the third round (played the previous day). She had an unplayable lie and dropped her ball, according to Rule 28. The reporter said that she had dropped the ball nearer the hole, which would have been against the rule. Officials and Wie tried to reconstruct the incident. The officials concluded that Wie had dropped the ball nearer the hole. The officials claimed the distance was 12 to 15 inches; Wie claimed it was only 3 inches. Regardless, both Wie and the officials acknowledged that it was a violation. Because Wie signed her scorecard without reporting the rules infraction, she was charged with a violation of the rules of golf for signing an incorrect scorecard and was disqualified from the tournament.
Wie played her second professional event in November, 2005 at the Casio World Open on the Japan Golf Tour. She shot four over par and missed the cut. She made her third professional start in January 2006, returning to the PGA Tour at the Sony Open in Hawaii for the third straight year. She again missed the cut, shooting rounds of 79 and 68. In February 2006 she was ranked third in the first release of the Women’s World Golf Rankings.
Source: Wikipedia
Michelle Wie Official Web Site
