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At 16 years of age, Michelle Wie stands on ground few feet have touched. She's already wealthier than most people could realistically imagine. She's a teenager who plays alongside the greatest figures in her sport. She's a girl who has made it perfectly clear that she wants to compete on the PGA Tour. She seemingly has it all - money, fame and an endorsement from Time Magazine, which recently listed her as one of the 100 people who most shape our lives. She also has enormous expectations - from herself, her family, her fans and her corporate sponsors. The only thing she doesn't have is a victory since being launched onto the global golf radar in 2003 by becoming the youngest player to win a USGA event for adults - the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links Championship. She has yet to win in 33 events on the LPGA Tour and has failed in all eight attempts to make the cut in a men's professional event. Since turning professional last October, she has been disqualified, overwhelmed by heat exhaustion, expressed confusion about the rules and been in last place when cuts were made at the recent European Masters and 84 Lumber Classic. She has earned millions of dollars through endorsements and appearance fees and performed very well on the LPGA Tour, including three top-five finishes in the majors this year. But in American sports, particularly professional golf in the age of Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam, excellence is measured in one way - winning championships. So until she holds a trophy over her head or plays on the weekend in a PGA Tour event, Wie - who will be part of an elite field at the Samsung World Championship at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert this month - must live with the pressure she has placed on her shoulders, even if she's still more than a year away from a high school diploma. "Nobody diminishes her ability to make a living, and she has so much marketability and talent, that's a given," said Lisa Mickey, communications director for the Duramed Futures Tour, a developmental tour for female professionals. "But at some point, the shine comes off the apple and this novelty of a teen trying to play the men's game is going to wear off. Either you're winning and producing or you're just out there playing. She's definitely a golfer who is a better player than her current results show, but players have to learn how to win, and it's been a long time since she's won anything. Without that, her appeal won't be so great." It's fitting that Wie is from Hawaii, because sharks are beginning to circle this talented and marketable teen. After a near-universal embracing when she broke onto the scene three years ago, she's coming under increasing scrutiny from media pundits and fellow golfers. Questions have been raised about everything from her knowledge of the game to accepting sponsorship exemptions for PGA Tour events even though she has yet to win an LPGA event. "She's certainly not scaring anybody around here," said U.S. Ryder Cup team member Scott Verplank, who also missed the cut at the 84 Lumber Classic. "Obviously, she's some sort of phenom being a 16-year-old girl who can play like she can, but honestly there's not a male or female in the world who can compete out here at that age. If I was her adviser, I would tell her to go kick all the ladies' tails around for about four years and if she wants to try again when she's 20, 21 and grown up more, and maybe a better player, come on back." The focus of much of the criticism surrounds the strategy she and her team - which includes her parents, instructors and the William Morris agency - have come up with. Is she a golfer or an attraction? A prospective champion or a marketing tool? "Her and her father's game plan is very different from what Earl Woods did with Tiger: learn to dominate every step of the way. If you're 14, beat other 14-year-olds and build on that," said Ron Sirak, executive editor of Golf Magazine. "But the Wie strategy is to set the bar very high, keep it high and keep jumping toward it until you get over. And it's too early to judge whether that's a successful strategy." Sirak has interviewed Wie and her father, B.J., about 20 times and is convinced that "she never started down this road to be rich and famous. She clearly loves the game and what she's doing. There's nothing else that she'd rather do. But that doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy everything else with it." Wie's third-place finishes at this year's Kraft Nabisco and U.S. Women's Open, along with her fifth-place finish at the LPGA Championship, demonstrate that she can play. But her attempts to become the first woman to make a cut on the PGA Tour since Babe Didrickson in 1945 have regressed from novelty act to reality check. After missing the cut in her first men's event - the 2004 Sony Open - she has broken par in only two rounds of PGA Tour events. So why is Wie continuing to accept PGA Tour sponsor exemptions, and will sponsors continue to extend invitations in the future? "My view is that to get better on the men's tour and to be a better player, I have to keep playing men's events," Wie told The Associated Press after the European Masters. B.J. Wie, who didn't respond to e-mail questions for this article, told a reporter after that tournament that criticisms regarding his daughter's desire to play in men's events is largely out of his hands. "Many people say she should quit, but what would be the reason for quitting? This is what she wants to do," B.J. Wie said. "She is a very stubborn girl. Even if I told her not to play, I don't think she would listen to me." Regardless of her reasoning, the fact that Wie isn't competing well could begin to erode her confidence, say some former golfing greats. "I think she's making a mistake. She hasn't learned how to be a winner yet and she should play with the ladies first and learn how to win and then decide after that," said Billy Casper, a San Diego resident and member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. "She's an absolutely fantastic player, but in golf you have to build a foundation, and it grows from there. And she isn't doing that by playing with the men and missing cuts." Another Hall-of-Famer, Amy Alcott, agrees. "She seems to have made money a quest in her career, but now she has to go out and prove that she's worth it," said Alcott, who won 29 times, including five majors, on the LPGA Tour. "I think you lose a lot of credibility if you can't beat the top women in the world but you're taking on the guys. And personally, I think while she's making a lot of money, which is all good and well, the bottom line is to win." Anne Meyers, the first woman to be invited to an NBA training camp, said the chance to compete against the best players in the world should override gender considerations. "I always competed against men because I loved playing the game," said Meyers, who accepted an invitation in 1979 to try out for the Indiana Pacers even though she was a pivotal member of the fledgling Women's Basketball League. "When the offer came to try out for the Pacers, I did so even though the WNBA was just starting because I thought, 'How can I turn this down?' Sure, I didn't make the team, but if you don't try, you'll never know. "I know people are critical of Michelle for playing men's events, but how does she turn down the offer to compete against the best? No, she hasn't won yet on the LPGA Tour, but at the age of 14 she held her own against men two or three times her age. Who can fault her for that?" Meyers also is unconvinced that Wie's inability to win an event on a professional tour will wreck her mental game. "In my mind, the only way to learn how to win is how to lose," Meyers said. "Within failure [lies] the drive to compete. If you've got the desire, dedication and determination, failure is just part of playing. And what is winning? If she makes the cut, that's a success. I cannot believe that Michelle Wie does not want to win, and I think she's still already a winner because even though she hasn't won a championship, she's still grinding it out there like everyone else." But not every grinder is earning millions of dollars without having to win. And in that light, it's impossible not to compare Wie to Woods. Part of the framework of Woods' narrative is his childhood memorization of the number of majors won by Jack Nicklaus and his stated desire to surpass that mark. "The thing about Tiger and Annika is that their main focus was to be great golfers and great champions, and the money was incidental," Sirak said. "Yet Woods signed a five-year, $40 million contract with Nike upon turning pro, something that caused the same degree of jealousy and resentment that some perceive is being directed at Wie. "But Tiger did two things quickly. He won one early (his fifth professional event) and by next April, he was the best player in the world. The second thing he did was that the month after he won the Masters, the PGA Tour signed a huge TV contract and a light went on over the head of every other player on the Tour: Tiger is going to make everyone rich. I think LPGA players would love to see that kind of commitment from Wie." Wie's stated desire to play PGA Tour events, the Masters and even in the Ryder Cup is ambitious, for sure, but could end up alienating her from some of her peers now and well into the future. "She's very open about being a freelance golfer and I'm glad she has the ability to do that, but the best golfers in the world aren't freelancing, they're committed members to a tour," said Mickey of the Futures Tour. "I'm sure she respects the LPGA Tour, but when you continue to play male tours it's almost like giving the message that the LPGA isn't good enough. But she hasn't won on that tour yet, so many players wonder what she's talking about. "We have players who want a piece of her and want a piece of her now. They want to go toe-to-toe with her, be in her group and see what she's got. They respect her talent, but they're also saying she hasn't proven she's the best on any tour, so play us. Could she win on this or the LPGA? Absolutely. Would she win every time? No way. I'd love to see her go against our top player (Song-Hee Kim, 18, who has won five times in her rookie year). Our girls spend 19 weeks traveling with each other. They learn how to compete and what life is like on a tour. I know Michelle has lots of game, and has had lots of attention, but she still hasn't learned to win as a professional, and that's a very big step." The question of whether Wie will still attract high-dollar endorsements if she continues to go winless is intriguing, and her father has been quoted as saying that people "do not fully understand the capitalistic market mechanism" that comes into play regarding decisions about his daughter. Wie indeed is a potent marketing tool for young people on both sides of the Pacific (her parents are Korean and she's American), and her star shows no signs of waning. But there could come a time when performance speaks louder than hype. "Right now, there's nobody in the game who generates as much buzz as she does," Sirak said. "Even Tiger, until he went on that five-game win streak, had less. But if she continues to miss cuts against the men, some of that buzz will be affected." At the moment, the bottom line appears to be at the top of the list for Wie and her entourage, Mickey said. "I do hope that when she sits back and starts designing her schedule for 2007 that she reaches out to some women's tour," she said. "To be the best in women's golf, and then see what happens. Right now, she's the best at marketing, and that's it." While Sirak commends Wie for her ambitious attitude, he said victories must come soon or fans will start tuning out. "I think the tide has turned and more people in the public and media have started to think that maybe she should establish some success playing against the women and then the men," Sirak said. "But I also think that women will be competing against men someday in golf. There's no physical reason why that can't happen. You don't have to be 6-foot-7 to play golf. It could be 10 to 15 years down the road, and it could be Michelle Wie. She'll only be 26." Alcott sees the bitter and sweet in Wie's ability to earn millions of dollars without winning a tournament. "It's a sad state of affairs when someone can be rewarded so well before ever genuinely producing, but there's another part of me that says, 'you go girl.' If you can get the money, go get it," Alcott said. "But now she has to go out and prove it, and I think you'll lose a lot of credibility if you can't beat the top women in the game but you're still taking on the guys." So what is success? Cuts made? Trophies held? Money received? Alcott thinks the answer is personal and can best be assessed with hindsight and wisdom. "In golf, just as in life, you have to do things for the right reasons," she said. "I certainly can't answer for Michelle, but I do know the bottom line for a Hall-of-Famer like myself is to look back on what you accomplished on the course. "How many majors did you win? If you won down the stretch when you led, or you came from behind. If you won in cold or hot weather. If you were beating the dominant players of your time. All of those things are what give me the ability to sleep at night and move forward," Alcott said. "For me, making money was great, but what I accomplished on the course is the most important." n |
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