Golf’s next star is a ninth grader

Afterward, Wie said she had learnt something: ‘‘I learnt that I can play here. I think I could play here, but I have to work harder on my game to be in the winner’s circle. I never felt like I was out of place.’’

Wie is not the first female to play a men’s pro event, since Annika Sorenstam beat her to the tee amid much ballyhoo at the Colonial tournament last May. But Wie is certainly the youngest. And even though Ernie Els, one of the top stars in the game, is on hand to defend his title at Waialae, expect Wie to hold her own in the attention department.

We should have seen this one coming. Wie is 14-years-old and already stands alone. A golf prodigy straight out of ninth grade, Wie, with a swing so sweet it should be poured like syrup on pancakes, has been compared to an early-teen Tiger Woods.

But away from all this attention, one remembers a day after this Christmas at the Village Course at Kapalua. Just after 8:30 in the morning that lingering fog still busy turning into hazy sunlight that illuminated a single golfer on the driving range she sent one golf ball after another soaring off into the distance. Standing silently behind her were her parents, BJ and Bo, so close that their elbows were touching. Someday the Michelle Wie phenomenon is really going to take off and this quiet snapshot of Team Wie in the early morning will remind us all how simple it once was.

Wie, expected to be the next big thing in golf, is already big. She regularly hits drives more than 300 yards, partly because she stands an even 6-feet tall in her size 9-1/2 men’s golf shoes. ‘‘She’s got the touch, the feel and the power,’’ says Wie’s coach, Gary Gilchrist of the David Leadbetter Golf Academy. ‘‘All she needs is time. And she’s got plenty of that.’’

‘‘I think she’s a phenomenal player,’’ Els says. ‘‘It’s a hell of an achievement for her, at 14, to play with us. I mean, can you imagine? I played my first British Open at 19, and I was way out of my place.’’

When she’s not on the golf course, Wie’s place is in the ninth grade at Punahou School, a $12,050-a-year private school. In two honours courses and with a 3.5 grade-point average, Wie thinks she knows what to expect when she tees up against the top male golfers in the world.

‘‘There is less pressure on me playing because people are pretty used to women playing by now,’’ Wie says. ‘‘If they’re strong enough and they want to do it, I don’t see why they can’t do it. I think women playing the PGA will be common in the future.’’

Gilchrist says that those who question why Wie is playing against male pros are missing the boat. ‘‘Just think about what she’s doing for junior golf,’’ he says. ‘‘Then think about how many thousands of kids might use her as a role model for their own dreams.’’

What Wie and her parents have been focusing on since she received a sponsor’s invitation into her hometown PGA Tour event two months ago is for Michelle to make the cut. That is, to be among the 70 players with the lowest total scores after two rounds. Last year, the cut was at par 140 — and such former major champions as Fred Couples, Rich Beem, Steve Jones, Larry Mize and Craig Stadler failed to reach it.

Wie isn’t going to surprise anyone. The pros know all about her. At the Sony Open a year ago, she tried to qualify and didn’t get in the field, but still caused some jaws to drop when she showed up at the practice range, then played in the pro-am, and began banging golf balls into the stratosphere.

Tom Lehman gave her a nickname, ‘‘the Big Wiesy’’, and with her new moniker, Michelle embarked on a golf odyssey that was both groundbreaking and headline grabbing, not to mention, well, what?

‘‘Hectic,’’ Wie says. ‘‘We were everywhere, like week after week.’’

BJ Wie estimates that he had spent $70,000 on Michelle’s golf in 2003, when the family traveled together to the six LPGA tournaments for which she received sponsors’ exemptions, plus the US Women’s Open. She made the cut in six of the seven tournaments. Along the way, she kept busy setting records.

In March, she shot a 66 at the Nabisco Championships, the first major tournament on the LPGA calendar. It equalled the lowest score ever shot by an amateur in a women’s major. That put Wie, then 13, in the final group on Sunday. She didn’t win, but she made an impression.

Wie turned more heads when she won the US Women’s Amateur Public Links championship as the youngest champion ever. She also tied for fifth at the US Women’s Open qualifier and wound up as the youngest player ever to make the cut at the US Open. Wie played two men’s pro events on sponsors’ exemptions, one on the Canadian Tour and one on the Nationwide Tour. She missed the cut in each of them, but gained valuable experience.

There was one experience, though, that Wie would like to forget. At the US Open, she had a run-in with LPGA pro Danielle Ammaccapane, who angrily accused Michelle and BJ of improper etiquette during play. BJ, who served as Michelle’s caddie, also had a dispute with Ammaccapane’s father.

‘‘It still bothers me because I haven’t felt comfortable since that incident,’’ BJ Wie says. ‘‘Michelle just says it’s over and forget it.’’

Wie has received invitations to 12 LPGA tournaments in 2004 and is planning to play in six, as many as she is allowed. But as good as Wie is, players such as Woods and Davis Love III question whether Wie is taking on too much too soon. They suggest that she play on the junior level and learn to dominate the field. The eight tournaments Wie played with sponsors’ exemptions last year were one more than Woods played in his entire amateur career.

‘‘I think it’s pretty neat that she’s playing and I wish her all the luck in the world,’’ Woods says. ‘‘I think it’s good experience to play against people who are better than you. You do learn that way. But I also look at the philosophy that you need to play and win, too, to learn the art of winning. My dad was a big believer in that. I think that’s what she needs to try to do.’’

Michelle is clear on what she needs to do. ‘‘It’s like my hobby, playing in men’s tournaments, because they’re really exciting and give me something new to try,’’ she says. ‘‘I want to go to the next level. I don’t want to restrict myself to one level. My philosophy is that I can struggle in professional tournaments as much as in my amateur years. The rookies that go on the LPGA, they always waste a year or two trying to figure out what to do. I don’t want to waste time. I just want to get ready for the future. I don’t want to get stuck in the present.’’

Chances are that Wie’s future will involve a great deal of money. She says she wants to attend Stanford and stay all four years. In fact, her parents insist on it. But once she turns pro, experts say, Wie should be able to cash in quickly on endorsements. ‘‘She’s the type of athlete that women could use as a model for years and years,’’ says Bob Williams, president of Burns Spots, a company that puts celebrities into business deals. ‘‘She’s the type of athlete that Nike would dearly want to have.’’

Williams said Wie also would be a natural promoting food conglomerates, luxury automobiles and computers, to name a few. ‘‘It will be interesting to see who comes to the table,’’ he adds. ‘‘She could be the LPGA version of Tiger Woods. There are a lot of opportunities for Michelle, depending on what age she turns pro. She says she’s going to go to college for four years, but we’ll see.’’

In the meantime, Wie has her hands full with ninth grade. Up at 6 am, her first 55-minute class is math at 7:30. That’s one of her hard ones, Wie says, along with biology and geometry. English is sometimes hard and sometimes easy, but this semester it’s hard because the class is reading ‘‘Beowulf’’ and the archaic language is tricky.

She loves shopping and going to the mall with friends, who tease her because of her ‘‘golfer’s tan’’. ‘‘I’ve got the whitest feet in school, and I am embarrassed,’’ she says. ‘‘When I’m at school, I don’t even want to think about golf. It’s just school and my friends. When I’m on the golf course, I don’t really feel like a ninth grader. It’s kind of hard to be normal when everybody knows you. In Hawaii, they kind of do. But overall, I think I am pretty normal. I go to school.’’

And don’t even mention burnout to her. She says if she thinks about burnout, she’ll burn out, so she doesn’t think about burnout.

Wie has an unusual dream for a 14-year-old girl. She wants to play in the Masters. And in her dream, she wins it, then doesn’t ask for the traditional green jacket given to the winner. ‘‘I’d take a green skirt,’’ she says.

(LA Times-Washington Post)