A Good Score Would Have Solved Everything

Nothing could do more to get me back to my blog than the non-surprise of Michelle Wie accepting another sponsor's exemption to Reno-Tahoe. She may be unrealistic but Wie does know how to pick an event. With the real tour players at the WGC event in Akron, Ohio Wie faced a field that gave her some kind of shot of making her first cut in 8 attempts on the PGA Tour. Alas, Wie fell short. Happily, though, she said that she learned alot so I guess it was all worth it.

Where Tiger Woods succeeded in bringing fans of other sports to golf Michelle Wie succeeds largely in bringing fans of no sports to the golf events where she shows up. Think about it. Every Wie-Fan at Reno-Tahoe was not at home watching the Women's British Open. They choose to cheer for one young woman rather than women's golf as a whole.

I think that fact says more about Michelle Wie than it does even about her fans. Rather than suffer the potential ignominy of failing to qualify for the Women's British, she choose the road to easy adulation. She is the only player on the planet who thinks that the PGA Tour is a great place to work on your game while going to college. The problem is that there are just enough decidedly minor events on the tour calender to assure that this dubious path will continue for as long as she cares to walk it.

Perhaps Wie would be wise to create a Michelle Wie Tour to showcase her now stagnating talents to her rapt audience? That would get her off the pesky hook of qualifying for whatever tour she most aspires to and would even put her in the Ka-Ching Friendly position to accept some fat appearance fees to augment her meager earnings (from playing, at least).

The real question is just what is Wie's point? Is she into learning to play at the highest level possible? If that were the case, she would have been wise to maintain her amateur status and do a couple years of college golf before taking the LPGA Tour by storm. A guy named Woods followed that plan and it has worked out fairly well for him. If she wants to play against the men, she's free to head to Q-School and take her shot. If she's already truly a professional in her head, why not give up the Stanford pretense and head to the LPGA Q-School?

For a person who said that a good score will solve everything, Michelle Wie would appear to be distinctly uninterested in doing the work to post a good score on any tour.