Not long ago, I wrote a short piece about how it seemed that, finally, the fuss around
Michelle Wie had died down.
After two dreadful performances on the LPGA Tour – dead last at the McDonald’s LPGA Championship, then another withdrawal at the U.S. Women’s Open – and that controversial pull-out from the Ginn Tribute, it seemed – thankfully – that Wie decided to go into hiding and re-evaluate her game, her priorities and her future.
The entire golfing world – the media, the players, the LPGA – would benefit from a “time-out.” Personally, I believed – and still do – that Wie should drop out of sight for a good long while, focus on Stanford in the fall, then quietly rebuilt her game. Think of the “comeback” headlines when she re-appeared on the LPGA Tour in a year or two.
That was too much to wish for.
Wie is in France right now, playing in the Evian Masters – and she’s on the leaderboard, even-par halfway through her round.
The Evian Masters, which kicks-off the European leg of the LPGA Tour, is a significant event for Wie: It was here, last year, that she last broke par during a round of golf. You could say, without venturing very deep into hyperbole, that the wheels started to come off her game after this event last year.
But check this out, from the LPGA Tour: http://www.lpga.com/content_1.aspx?pid=11910&mid=1
It’s your usual PR stuff, previewing the Evian Masters. Notice anything? Wie’s name is no where to be found, even though this is the first pro event she’s entered in nearly a month, and the first since that awful stretch of golf in May and June. Justified of not, Wie is still the biggest name on the LPGA Tour (even though, yes, she’s not really on the Tour). She’s what the media are interested in. She’s what the fans are interested in. And last year’s Evian Masters was really the last bright spot for Wie. The LPGA Tour doesn’t even mention her name in its tournament preview?
What we’re seeing here is the Tour still smarting over the Wie storm of the last few months. Wie did many things to smack the Tour in the face – her childish spat with Annika Sorenstam not the least of them – and it looks like now the Tour wants some distance.
It will be interesting to see how this relationship heals, because there’s no denying that it is a vital one for the future of the LPGA Tour. You’re not going to see the LPGA Tour putting moratoriums on sponsor’s exemptions for Wie – that would be too much like shooting itself in the foot. But I think you’ll see a much more guarded Tour when it comes to giving her attention.
But just as the Tour needs to weigh its feelings about Wie, she needs to do the same about the Tour.
Wie turns 18 in October and will decide whether to join the LPGA Tour full time. Her uncertainty only makes the Tour’s balancing act with Wie all the more delicate.
“I’m not sure yet,” she told the press yesterday, when asked about her LPGA Tour future. “I haven’t fully decided what I really want to do yet.”
WorldGolf.com's Jeff White is based in Berlin, Germany, and writes on all matters of golf and travel, with a particular emphasis on the European golf scene, keeping you informed about what's happening on and off the golf course.
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