I never thought I would have to come back to write yet another Michelle Wie column.
But, here I am.
I suppose if she’s going to be stubborn about "not giving up" on her quest to make the cut in a men’s event, then I won’t either. I’ll keep writing these columns until she or her parents figure out a graceful "exit strategy" to what is becoming the biggest bust of a sports marketing experiment since Reebok’s ill-fated "Dan and Dave" campaign.
The latest installment of "Wie’s Quest" took place at the 84 Lumber Classic -- or in her case, the 77-81, "Not So Classic."
She finished dead last.
So, let’s recap: in her last three men’s events she’s had two dead-last finishes, and one DNF (did not finish). And yet – and yet – she still keeps babbling nonsense like this:
"Well, I made one birdie today, which is one more than the tournament before," said Wie, referencing her birdie-less trip around the globe to play in the European Masters.
"So definitely," she said, summing up her two rounds, "I feel I'm getting better. You know, I didn't feel it was actually that bad because I felt like my game was 100 times better than last week. I felt like my shots were, yeah, 100 times better than last week.
"I just want to play and see where I get to. II definitely want to keep playing out there and compete with them."
Um, not to nitpick, but she’s hardly competing with them with these finishes. She’s merely playing alongside them.
Following the 84 Lumber debacle (um, I mean, success, yeah that’s it, right Team Wie?) there was this exchange as written by PGATour.com freelancer Marino Parascenzo:
Are Michelle's parents concerned?
"I don't give interviews," her mother said.
Will she continue to play?
"We have already scheduled the Casio in Japan," said her dad, B.J.
How long will you keep doing this?
"I don't know," he said, ending the interview.
And there you have it, folks. The parents let their kid spittle nonsense in front of the press, while they duck for cover behind a phalanx of “no comments.” And when it’s not that, it’s an excuse.
This week, the Wie Excuse was how long the course played, thanks to rain. "It was tough this morning, really wet," Wie said.
Yes, sweetheart. That does happen from time to time here on the Big Boys tour. Not unlike when she was shocked -- shocked! -- to find out that an abundance of bugs sometimes congregates on a tee box (John Deere Classic). Or, that European courses can be "tricky" (Papa Wie’s words).
If you could sum up how this whole thing is going right now, a fair assessment would be as follows.
"Michelle Wie and her parents are programming failure into a talented young player’s psyche, teaching her to make excuses for bad play while chasing one hot week on a tour that she’ll never play full time on."
I feel like I am kicking a dead golf bag here, but the stubbornness of "Team Wie" demands that one comment on the nature of this now psychotic quest. The one question I wish would elicit an honest answer from Team Wie would be this: "Okay, what happens if she does make the cut someday? What then? What, exactly, then?"
She won’t get a PGA Tour card for making a single cut. She won’t even make enough money to buy one of the expensive Omega watches she’s paid millions to endorse. They won’t bring her a cake, let her hit from shorter tees when it’s wet, or get a 2-minute "timeout" when she’s attacked by gnats.
Worst of all for Michelle and her marketing wing, is that because of these abysmal efforts lately, she won’t even get the hype that making a cut once offered. Sure, some will trumpet it as a breakthrough event in sports, but the vast majority of pundits will see it for what it is: simply one hot week.
They have a name for the golfer who makes the cut one week out of 11, and then finishes dead last the next: "mini-tour player."
"She's certainly not scaring anybody around here," said Ryder Cup team member Scott Verplank, who also missed the cut at the 84 Lumber. "To be honest, I didn't even know she was here."
Hah. Now that’s a lie. The tournament promoted Wie as heavily as fellow Tour DQ-Master John Daly. Her face was on every billboard, media guide, and marketing brochure leading up the event. Surely, Verplank knew she was there. But, he’s right about her not being any kind of threat.
The shame in all of this is that Wie does have exceptional talent. The kind of talent, if properly cultivated, could dominate the LPGA for decades and make people say: "Annika who?"
But all of that is in jeopardy now. It’s clear that Team Wie has no desire to focus on LPGA Fame and Glory. They want the "Big Dream" that a precocious 13-year-old started talking about seemingly forever ago.
It reminds you a lot of Marv and Todd Marinovich. I wonder if they ever heard of them.
Not long ago, I remember golf writers saying things like "It’s not a matter of IF with Wie, it’s a matter of WHEN," in regard to making a men’s cut.
Those same pundits are oddly silent right now.
The problem is, Wie is beholden to her major sponsors, and retreating to competition of her own gender for the next few years is most definitely NOT what Sony, Nike, and the others signed on for. If those companies wanted to get in business with "just another LPGA player," they could have had Lorena Ochoa for pennies on the dollar.
What Wie and her team need is a good "escape plan" from the corner they have painted themselves into -- something that will let them save face while retreating and claiming victory.
The PGA Tour could provide this escape plan if it cared. It would sound something like this:
"Look, we’re not going to keep letting you accept these invites. We’ll make up a rule, revise a policy, and do whatever it takes. But, here’s the good news, kid. We’ve put in a call to the LPGA, and they too are going to rewrite that silly 18-year-old rule, so you can play there full time starting next year. So go kick some major skirt, taste the sweet taste of winning, and give us a call when you are 18 and we’ll talk."
Will that happen? It doesn’t look likely. So when one asks: "Geez, how much more are we going to have to hear about a delusional, last-place finishing, 16-year-old girl golfer?"
My answer is the same as B.J. Wie’s: "I don’t know."
But, here I am.
I suppose if she’s going to be stubborn about "not giving up" on her quest to make the cut in a men’s event, then I won’t either. I’ll keep writing these columns until she or her parents figure out a graceful "exit strategy" to what is becoming the biggest bust of a sports marketing experiment since Reebok’s ill-fated "Dan and Dave" campaign.
The latest installment of "Wie’s Quest" took place at the 84 Lumber Classic -- or in her case, the 77-81, "Not So Classic."
She finished dead last.
So, let’s recap: in her last three men’s events she’s had two dead-last finishes, and one DNF (did not finish). And yet – and yet – she still keeps babbling nonsense like this:
"Well, I made one birdie today, which is one more than the tournament before," said Wie, referencing her birdie-less trip around the globe to play in the European Masters.
"So definitely," she said, summing up her two rounds, "I feel I'm getting better. You know, I didn't feel it was actually that bad because I felt like my game was 100 times better than last week. I felt like my shots were, yeah, 100 times better than last week.
"I just want to play and see where I get to. II definitely want to keep playing out there and compete with them."
Um, not to nitpick, but she’s hardly competing with them with these finishes. She’s merely playing alongside them.
Following the 84 Lumber debacle (um, I mean, success, yeah that’s it, right Team Wie?) there was this exchange as written by PGATour.com freelancer Marino Parascenzo:
Are Michelle's parents concerned?
"I don't give interviews," her mother said.
Will she continue to play?
"We have already scheduled the Casio in Japan," said her dad, B.J.
How long will you keep doing this?
"I don't know," he said, ending the interview.
And there you have it, folks. The parents let their kid spittle nonsense in front of the press, while they duck for cover behind a phalanx of “no comments.” And when it’s not that, it’s an excuse.
This week, the Wie Excuse was how long the course played, thanks to rain. "It was tough this morning, really wet," Wie said.
Yes, sweetheart. That does happen from time to time here on the Big Boys tour. Not unlike when she was shocked -- shocked! -- to find out that an abundance of bugs sometimes congregates on a tee box (John Deere Classic). Or, that European courses can be "tricky" (Papa Wie’s words).
If you could sum up how this whole thing is going right now, a fair assessment would be as follows.
"Michelle Wie and her parents are programming failure into a talented young player’s psyche, teaching her to make excuses for bad play while chasing one hot week on a tour that she’ll never play full time on."
I feel like I am kicking a dead golf bag here, but the stubbornness of "Team Wie" demands that one comment on the nature of this now psychotic quest. The one question I wish would elicit an honest answer from Team Wie would be this: "Okay, what happens if she does make the cut someday? What then? What, exactly, then?"
She won’t get a PGA Tour card for making a single cut. She won’t even make enough money to buy one of the expensive Omega watches she’s paid millions to endorse. They won’t bring her a cake, let her hit from shorter tees when it’s wet, or get a 2-minute "timeout" when she’s attacked by gnats.
Worst of all for Michelle and her marketing wing, is that because of these abysmal efforts lately, she won’t even get the hype that making a cut once offered. Sure, some will trumpet it as a breakthrough event in sports, but the vast majority of pundits will see it for what it is: simply one hot week.
They have a name for the golfer who makes the cut one week out of 11, and then finishes dead last the next: "mini-tour player."
"She's certainly not scaring anybody around here," said Ryder Cup team member Scott Verplank, who also missed the cut at the 84 Lumber. "To be honest, I didn't even know she was here."
Hah. Now that’s a lie. The tournament promoted Wie as heavily as fellow Tour DQ-Master John Daly. Her face was on every billboard, media guide, and marketing brochure leading up the event. Surely, Verplank knew she was there. But, he’s right about her not being any kind of threat.
The shame in all of this is that Wie does have exceptional talent. The kind of talent, if properly cultivated, could dominate the LPGA for decades and make people say: "Annika who?"
But all of that is in jeopardy now. It’s clear that Team Wie has no desire to focus on LPGA Fame and Glory. They want the "Big Dream" that a precocious 13-year-old started talking about seemingly forever ago.
It reminds you a lot of Marv and Todd Marinovich. I wonder if they ever heard of them.
Not long ago, I remember golf writers saying things like "It’s not a matter of IF with Wie, it’s a matter of WHEN," in regard to making a men’s cut.
Those same pundits are oddly silent right now.
The problem is, Wie is beholden to her major sponsors, and retreating to competition of her own gender for the next few years is most definitely NOT what Sony, Nike, and the others signed on for. If those companies wanted to get in business with "just another LPGA player," they could have had Lorena Ochoa for pennies on the dollar.
What Wie and her team need is a good "escape plan" from the corner they have painted themselves into -- something that will let them save face while retreating and claiming victory.
The PGA Tour could provide this escape plan if it cared. It would sound something like this:
"Look, we’re not going to keep letting you accept these invites. We’ll make up a rule, revise a policy, and do whatever it takes. But, here’s the good news, kid. We’ve put in a call to the LPGA, and they too are going to rewrite that silly 18-year-old rule, so you can play there full time starting next year. So go kick some major skirt, taste the sweet taste of winning, and give us a call when you are 18 and we’ll talk."
Will that happen? It doesn’t look likely. So when one asks: "Geez, how much more are we going to have to hear about a delusional, last-place finishing, 16-year-old girl golfer?"
My answer is the same as B.J. Wie’s: "I don’t know."
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
