Next stop for Michelle Wie: The PGA European Tour?

I for one am waiting for Michelle Wie’s media machine to announce that she is heading over the pond to the European PGA Tour to continue her pathetic quest to make a cut in a PGA Tour event. I mean, up to now she has humiliated herself in every PGA event she’s played (well, maybe not every one…she did miss the cut by only two at the 2005 John Deere Classic, I think). Can it be that long until Wie gets the idea to try her luck at one of the smaller events over in these parts?

I say this because all evidence points to the fact that Wie is simply not satisfied with concentrating on the task at hand, namely becoming a better golfer, good enough not only to compete in, but to win, tournaments. A golfer’s greatness is measured by wins, pure and simple. Her coach, David Leadbetter, announced last month that her days playing with the men were over. It was time to work on her game. Wie’s response? She took a third-straight sponsor’s exemption for this year’s John Deere Classic.

Oh, did I mention that as of this writing Wie is in dead last place at the Ginn Tribute, at 7-over-par after nine. 7-over after nine. Her card thus far boasts three bogeys, a double bogey, a triple bogey and a birdie.

Sorry. I’m just a little tired of The Big Wiesy - and I’m more than a little mystified about why people care so much about her. My esteemed colleague Dot Wong recently included an item about Wie in her must-read blog. She’s been inundated with reader responses ever since.

I’m not denying that Wie has talent - though one feels some chagrin for Arnold Palmer over his 2003 remark that Wie could influence the game as much, or more, than Tiger Woods. She has talent. But at the risk of taking away from the slew of top-10s and top-5s showings Wie has managed to post, her fame is still grossly at odds with a record that is, at best, a series of also-rans and almost-wons.

Is the media fueling a lot of this “sensation” (and she is a “teen sensation,” we’re told, a moniker I wish I thought to wear back when I won a few junior tennis tournaments in Connecticut, including one put on in Newtown by the local Knights of Columbus) talk about Wie? Of course. But so are golf fans, many who seemingly ignore the fact that this is one career that can very likely disappoint in the end. Five years from now we can be reading stories with headlines like, “Michelle Wie: What was all the fuss about?”

Will that happen? Hard to say. It is always a danger when the media creates a star well before the star creates, legitimately, his or her own stardom. Wie could light up the LPGA and exert Tiger-like influence. Or she can rack up huge endorsement deals, draw galleries by the thousands, show up to Hollywood movie screenings in designer gowns, never win a thing and end up playing exhibition skins games on prime time television. Golf’s Anna Kournikova.

So far, this Wiesy isn’t moving on up. Is she heading to Europe? Let’s not put it past her media machine. They already know she can out drive Monty.

Let me head off a few of your rebuttals.

1. Take it easy on Wie. She’s not even 18 yet.
Exactly. So why all this obsession over someone still “coming into her own"? Where else in life do we praise performance-in-the-making?

2. Well, Wie would embarrass you on the golf course.
Listen, I can embarrass myself on the golf course. I don’t need her help.

3. Aren’t you using the subject of Michelle Wie to drive up readership on your blog?
You’re on to me.

I started this blog with Wie at 7-over-par at the Ginn Tribute. She’s still there.

Seriously, though, I think we should all be angry at the media’s selling of Wie - and her role in that transaction. I am not going to write that Michelle Wie is a joke.

But I am afraid she will become one.