Three years ago I followed Michelle Wie around Manada Golf Club near Grantville as she played a practice round for the following day’s qualifier for the U.S. Public Links.
Wie, a Hawaiian, spent most of that summer touring the mainland, playing in tournaments and qualifiers, with an entourage that included her parents, a caddie on loan from David Ledbetter’s academy and the obligatory butler. Yes, a butler.
Her “team,” seemed weirdly serious that day, especially for a practice round. Mom and Dad sort of marched grimly around, measuring and examining things. They had a slope-measuring device and a white, cup-sized disc to place on the already-marked Friday pin positions. Occasionally Mom stood in the line of play and grandly held an umbrella overhead, as a target.
Wie herself was distant with her playing partners, a club pro and a good local amateur. She spent more time putting to the disc then to the actual hole, and after a while ignored the hole completely while her partners labored on.
It was all strange and dour and not much fun. Her parents seemed a bit nuts, frankly. My guess would have been that Wie was traveling a treacherous road but, hey, she was 14 then, and as advanced as any 14 year-old golfer has ever been, so you tended to figure they knew what they were doing.
Now, Wie is 17. She hasn’t yet won an LPGA tournament, has a growing rep among her peers as someone who simply doesn’t know how to behave professionally as a golfer, and her quixotic crusade to play against male pros now looks more pathetic than anything else.
A cautionary tale? Details are here.
