Annika on top of U.S. Women's Open while Michelle Wie lurks: Is a new rivalry ready to start?

I turned on the women's Open for a few minutes yesterday and caught Jim Nance drinking from the Bubbles Kool-Aid.

Bubbles had just pulled a 3-wood into trouble and taken a penalty and was about to hit her third shot on a par four. Well, she hit it so obviously fat that she let go of the club and the commentators groaned about how it might not clear the water. However, the ball just barely did so and trundled onto the green, not too far from the pin. This presented Bubbles with the opportunity to save par, which she did.

Now to Nance. He started lauding Bubbles, saying that like Tiger Woods she had that something "special." And I'm at a loss.

Let me get this straight. The girl is famous for choking putts. Then, a horribly struck shot limps over a water hazard and she gets lucky. Then she sinks one good par putt. And she has exhibited something "special" like Woods? I didn't know that Woods crafted his reputation by mishitting irons and choking away championships.

The Winless wonder lives up to her name.......WINLESS!!!!!!

How many female golfers have got a better record in majors over the past two years?
Alan M

It seems that Miss Wie's "course management has become "course mismanagement." She is one of the longest hitters on the LPGA and only managed to birdie 1 of 12 par 5's during the U.S. Open. What was she thinking when she chose to hit a 3 wood on the 546 yard 15th hole which had a fairway as wide as a football field?! She left herself 202 yards from the green and hit the approach in the bunker. I think everyone is getting tired of the "well, I am getting closer...just a few things I have to work one there." Her stubborness of making all of her own decisions on the golf course does not seem to work in her favor. Well...maybe next time!!

Joe Cool--Give me a break. Do you really think go-for-broke Michelle Wie chose to hit a 3 wood on that hole? That looked a lot more like player management than course management. Team Wie's goal in this tournament, and quite likely a number of other tournaments this year has been avoiding the type of meltdown Wie had at last year's US Women's Open. She hasn't won this year--but there have been no meltdowns and she has always been close at the end. Not everyone is getting tired of the "well, I am getting closer..just s few things I have to work on there." Those words are the words that Team Wie wants to hear. Indeed, encouragement and rededication following a close loss may be the best possible outcome for the further development of the player. Team Wie is not at all like Team Pressel last year when the Pressels were afraid that might be the only chance Morgan might ever have of winning the event.

Let' see four top five finishes with three of them top threes is not good enough for a high school senior. I think she should give back the half mil she has earned so far this season and beg the USAG to let her play amateur golf. This would give Michelle a chance to become a more seasoned golfer like Morgan or Paula.

Joe you are obviously are not a golfer of any merit if you don't appreciate the test developed by the USGA for the ladies this week and in fact mother nature came along and made far worse. Many of the top women golfers in the world were felled by the conditions in Newport. At the very end two of the most experienced golfers in the field ended up on top and it took every bit of their years of experience to get there.

You can be assured Michelle played some outstanding golf on an extremely tough course setup and she should be quite proud.

I could not believe that Michelle had improved her putting so much in such a short time. SHE FINISHED THIRD IN PUTTING!!!

John Daily rcommended a different putter for Michelle with more loft and weight. It appears John was "Right on Target!" again. Thanks John from of us fans of the game.

err: Thanks John from of us fans of the game. = Thanks John from all of us fans of the game.

Folks,

Wie didn't hit the 3-wood on the par 5, but on a 449 yard par 4. It was on that hole that she had 202 yards left.

Here is one for the forum to digest:

Name me one other player besides Michelle Wie who has garnered five top five finishes in their last five Major Tournament appearances. It ain't happened in this century folks until Michelle came along.

Currently 180 players are listed in the LPGA stats and after the US Women's Open only five have more top five finishes this season than Michelle Wie and most players don't have any top five finishes listed.

Believe me there are 170 gals (including Paula and Morgan) who would kill to have Michelle's results on the LPGA tour.

This young lady is well on her way to making a Million Bucks playing part time professional golf this year. Name me another 16 year old that has done that on any tour.

Take just a moment to just imagine what will happen after her game is fully matured. Now you know how the PGA and LPGA players feel. She is still a work in progress folks.

Hell I will go out on a limb and say she will take home paychecks from the Deere, Omega and Casio this season if she putts like she did this week.

There are many golfers on tour who will hold a grudge against John Daly after he got Michelle to switch putters. At least the ones behind her on the leaderboard.

One Putt. I assume you are couting the Evian here as the unofficial 5th Major. Michelle Wie has shown great consistency--never more than 2 strokes out of the lead this year. It will be interesting to see how she doe in this week's match play.

"Comment from: Jim COULTHARD [Visitor]
One Putt. I assume you are couting the Evian here as the unofficial 5th Major. Michelle Wie has shown great consistency--never more than 2 strokes out of the lead this year. It will be interesting to see how she doe in this week's match play."

The Evian "is" an European LPGA Tour Major Jim.

Michelle has earned enough money in just four LPGA events ($414,951) to have ended up in 10th place on the ADT money list if her stats counted. Fifteen events have been played so far this season.

Finally we can compare what Michelle accomplished at the 2003 USGA Women's Amateur and last year at the Men's Publix amateur with professional golfers in the field. Match play is the toughest test in golf, yet it is one of the few formats where you know exactly what you need to do to win.

It should be a good tune up for the John Deere.

Great observations One-Putt. I Googled for "Michelle Wie" this morning and saw your comments. It made headlines

Morgan Pressel dies a little each time Michelle does well. She wants so badly to beat her and ends up playing badly. Her envy level increases, her jealousy and bitterness. She tries harder next time and ends up beating herself badly. Somebody should try and help the poor girl out.

She is a great example in proving Wie's critics wrong. That winning at the junior level does not translate to winning at the professional level.

Morgan was simply great at beating up the juniors. She's out of her league with the pros.

Michelle can play with anybody, men or women.

I see her one day even taking on Tiger. Why not? She's better now than Tiger ever was at 16!!

Jenny

Michelle has a good change with Match play since she is very consistent. However, she should hope not to bump into one of the hot streaking Koreans along the way. The good news is she won't meet Annika until final as they are ranked 1,2.

In any case, ask Dottie Pepper who will win. She has the crystal ball in LPGA.

Thanks Jenny for the kind words. Who I was speaking to were the non-golfers out there who have decided Michelle is a failure if she doesn't win every time she tees it up and can't seem to appreciate what she has done so far.

To tell you the truth I expected Lorena to be contending in the US Open and was disappointed she wasn't in the mix. She has played some outstanding golf this year, but a tough course took a toll on her in the end.

One-Putt, Michelle has earned $394,951 to date in four tournaments. But even more impressive is the fact in the 3 majors this year her scoring average is 70.67, which would be number 1 on the LPGA Tour. Annika is second at 71.08. Hurst is third at 71.42.

As for the course at Newport I was there on Friday and Saturday. I can tell you the course was in terrible condition. Most of the bunkers had some water in them along with muddy sand; others were completely filled with water and had drop areas. The fairways had large pools of water and the rough was high grass and muddy surface. When I saw all of this, my first thought was this course borders on unplayable. Add to it all the high winds and tricky greens. I turned to my wife and said par will be a very good score. To say the least I was very disappointed with the USGA for allowing this to happen. If this had been The U.S. Open at Wingfoot, I am sure there would have been crews working all night to get the course playable, water out of the traps and fairways squeegied. But this was the women's open and I guess they just said play on ladies.

For those who think this course was a pushover. I can only tell you by experience. I played this course some 40 years ago. Although not long by most standards, it was made with wind in mind. The Par 5 10th hole is only 480 yards long but the second shot is from a downhill lie to an elevated green. A very high risk if you try to make it in two shots.

All these women who played in this tournament deserve high praise for enduring what was set out before them. None of them whined about the conditions openly, but I am sure many were dissappointed. A U.S. Open is hard enough with all the pressure and course set-up. But these ladies went far above what should have been expected of them. Kudos to all.

As for Wie's third shot after the drop on #7. She did not mishit that shot. Her ball was in mud. She had already hit the ball perfectly before releasing her hand from club. It was a fantastic shot and turned a 7 into a par 4.

Sorry PaulF I have her down for $399,257 in five tournaments. Did you forget about the $4,303 from the SK Open?

I play rounds three to five times a week on two different ocean courses and I can relate to what they were dealing with. Today for example I dealt with 20 with gusts to 30 knot winds and rain, but that didn't stop me from getting eighteen in the books. You adjust by teeing the ball low on drives and hitting knockdown irons. I didn't hit a dive over 20 yards high on every hole with the wind in my face during the round. That said I did appreciate when I had the wind at my back and was pulling out a seven iron for my second on a par 5.

Michelle has all the shots needed to play well, she just needs to fine tune her game.

Why do people insist on Michelle learning how to win at the kiddy level first like Tiger and Morgan. Tiger tried his hand on the pro circuit starting at 16 and missed the cut (MC). At 17, three more MC's. Finally made one cut out of four tries at 18 and he tied for 34th. At 19 he made all four cuts and finished 29th, 41st, 57th and 68th. To make a long story short, he didn’t win until his 8th tournament at age 20. He played in 20 PGA events before he won and was 20 years old. He didn’t have his first top ten until he played in 18 events. Granted Michelle has never made the cut in 4 PGA events, but has scored better than tiger did in his first 4 tries. Tiger averaged 74.75 per round while Michelle averaged 72.125. Michelle did this at 14, 15 and one PGA event at 16. But that is Michelle playing against the men vs. Tiger playing against the men. Michelle has better numbers and at a much younger age. However when it comes to the LPGA, we have a little girl playing against women, she makes Tiger PGA record really look like an amateur that needed to stay in the amateur ranks for a number of years. Tiger didn’t make a cut until he was 18 and that was a 34th place finish and his first top ten didn’t come until he was 20. Michelle made her first top ten at her first tournament at the tender age of 13 and it was also at a major. Since she reached the ripe old age of 14, she has NEVER missed the cut at an LPGA event. Age 14, 2 top 10’ out of 8 events. Age 15, 4 top 10’s out of 8 events. Age 16, 4 top 5’s out of 4 events. Lifetime Major record is 7 top 10’s out of 11 events and she is still 16 years old. The youngest person to ever win an LPGA event was 18 years old and the youngest to ever win a LPGA major was 20 years old. Annika was 26 years old before she had 7 top 10’s at the majors. There is a reason Michelle is number 2 in the world, she’s good!! As far as Morgan is concerned, she still has a long way to go to reach the consistent level of play of Michelle. Actually, everyone but Annika does. If I calculated the Rolex points correctly, Michelle would have ended up as number one in the world if she and Annika had reversed their finishes last week. Remember its not what you have done in your career, it what you have done in the recent past that counts the most. All those top 5 finishes in the last two years add up to a lot of Rolex points. I follow Michelle's progress because I see history in the making that may very well pass anything Tiger and Annika have done and at a much younger age.

You guys busting on Michelle Wie are losers. She is hyped, no doubt. Over hyped? Maybe. But is she talented as hell? Yes. Is her best golf still to come? Yes. Is she right now one of the most gifted golfers on the ladies tour? Yes. And there is one more glaring fact that anyone insulting here should remember. SHE IS FREAKING 16! What in the hell were you guys doing when you were 16?