• Star power: Wie earns LPGA card• Click here for complete Q-School coverage from Golfweek
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Michelle Wie likes to use the word “weird,” a word you probably learned long before this week you can’t spell without the letters W-I-E. For example, the Big Wiesy used “weird” four times in the first 80 seconds of her post-round interview Dec. 7 at LPGA Q-School, and stayed on that pace for the next 20 minutes. As you may have also heard, that was the first and only time Wie opened her mouth to reporters all week, which wasn’t as weird as it was wise.
Wie, looking as healthy and composed as ever, said it was a “weird day today,” considering she played well but just couldn’t get anything going. Then she said it was “really weird,” which is more or less how she described the entire week.
As for finally earning her LPGA card, which she did despite a topsy-turvy, final-round 74 on a cool and windy Sunday at LPGA International?
“A weird feeling,” she said. “A good feeling,” too, but also, definitely – like, for sure – a “weird” one.
We drive this point of weirdness home only to call attention to the fact that the last five days of Wie’s life actually weren’t weird at all – which, for Wie, means they weren’t typical.
She is a 19-year-old professional golfer with a Swoosh-embroidered safety net who attends Stanford, steals headlines like Tiger Woods (just ask Stacy Lewis, who tore through Q-School this week with a three-shot victory) and is represented by the same agent as superstars Kevin Garnett, Sharon Stone and Queen Latifah. Wie is accustomed to privilege, if not playing for playing privileges.
Q-School does not pick favorites. It is humbling. It is mind-numbing. You earn your way here, and you earn your way out. Wie played her way onto the LPGA in 2009 just like the other 21 players who made it through.
“I think if she failed this, it would have been like, ‘Michelle, who?’ ” said Wie’s swing coach David Leadbetter, who made intermittent appearances this week at LPGA International.
Leadbetter was there Sunday behind the 18th green as Wie tapped in for par and full LPGA status. Wie, arguably still a star in the making, picked the ball out of the hole and raised her arm to the delight of 500 or so surrounding spectators, some more intense than others.
About five minutes later, as Leadbetter spoke to a handful of reporters, one spectator popped in front of the group with a large cardboard sign that read “Yes Wie Can,” and posed for a picture.
It wasn’t as much weird as it was, well, Wie.
“She needs the LPGA; I think the LPGA needs her,” Leadbetter said. “I think you can see by these crowds here. I don’t think that would have been the case if she wasn’t playing.
“So I think it’s wonderful for all concerned.”
As Leadbetter spoke, Wie was about 35 yards away in the scoring trailer signing her scorecard, to the prodding of “like 10 people” and her caddie, Tim Vickers.
“I wouldn’t have even been in this position if I had signed that card,” she joked later, referring to last summer’s State Farm Classic, where she was disqualified for forgetting to sign her scorecard before leaving the scoring area.
Of course, that is just one of many short stories in the “Wie did what?” anthology, a collection that was expanded by the news that Wie said she would maneuver through Q-School without talking to reporters until her final putt fell.
As a result, there was no drama, there were no words to trip on, like on Sunday when Wie was asked whether she was looking forward to the following two days of LPGA orientation and said, “Well the politically correct answer is yes, I’m very excited about it with a smiling face. . . . Don’t ask me the politically incorrect answer to that.”
There was only golf, and she played it well. If there was any room to doubt her after an opening 69, it was her second-round 65 that silenced any critics, making us all realize that we pretty much knew what was about to happen, a reality that has never been Wie.
Somehow, we knew she would succeed this time. We knew it was time. Wie knew it was time.
Even Sunday morning, after opening with three consecutive bogeys, Wie stayed composed enough to take it to the house. She missed two fairways, eight greens and pitched in from 30 yards on No. 17 for birdie, looking up at her caddie and laughing just as she had done a hole earlier as one of countless birdie putts skirted past the hole.
“It ... means the world to me,” Wie said, “because I’ve come from very far below.”
There is nothing weird about that.
Posted: 12/7/2008
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