by Hurricane
I agree somewhat with the article and totally with the blame being on the media. The sports media "have" to create superstars because they don't have any stories if people develop normally. They found a high school student who has an amazing talent and tried to make her a mature veteran years before that was even possible. Was she driven by others? Perhaps! But the biggest and most unrelenting ones were the media themselves. Never mind the injuries that she has suffered trying to live up to the press clippings that media, only interested in the "story", created. Let the lady grow up and go through the struggles that come with professional sports without being held up as a failure if she doesn't match the expectations of someone who doesn't really matter -- the media! She will succeed without them because when it comes right down to it, the media aren't even good enough to carry her golf bag let alone call her a failure!

by Smitty
Interesting article and very nice of the author to point a majority of the blame at the media. While I respect that perspective I disagree.
Michelle is being driven hard by her father. She entered the hyper competitive LPGA life way too soon - she should have been eased into the competition. Her father is living life through her and not doing a very good job at it.
Look at the history - caddies fired, coaches blamed, other excuses. Seems the father needs to find a reason for her failure - a reason that does not include his actions.

by Joe Cool
BJ'S mantra is "I want Michelle to be rich and well educated." The priority of course was "rich". The worst thing that happened to Michelle was when she missed the cut at the Sony Open by one stroke when she was 14 years old. That started the hype that we have seen the past three years. Her reasoning of "I must play as much as possible in order to strengthen my wrists" is like I must walk as much as I can with my broken leg so it can improve.

by Bob Kentwood
I agree with the posts. Did any one buy an Omega Watch because Wie wore one? Does her old man B. J. continue the payments on that expensive house in Scottsdale?Did the LPGA & PGA care how many times she bent over in those short short skorts?Finally,does ANYONE remember the hype over TY TRYON?

by Ken Holden
Did the demise of Michelle Wie occur after during or before her decision to employ David Leadbetter as her coach, losing probably the world's best swing in the process?

by Chas. Douglas
Kudos to Jeff White for his article. Wie has been exploited by press, and family, and Nike as well. Now, she pays the price and the press rolls on to the next phenom.
Can Paris be persuaded to take up golf?

by Harry Robertson
I disagree with Steve Radlo. It wasn't Wie's fault but the people who wanted to make big bucks. The promoters and the TV companies. The should hang their heads in shame. Now they have made some big money out her they are happy to let her flounder around like a fish out of water. Blame it on her parents also for allowing it to happen. All they were interested in wash the green back dollar. Michele is a very niave child who had difficulty talking to the media.

by Charley Coppola
Let's face it Media People. You are in the, "If it bleeds, it leads", biz. Not your fault though. You just don't know any better.

by Steven Radlo
Don't blame the media for her downfall. Blame her and those that believed that she should be challenging the men in their play when she hadn't even won a tournament of her own with the women. I always wondered why she was able to compete with the men, even though she did not prove herself on the women's circuit. Now that I think of it, Anna Kournikova (spelling?) did more for women's tennis than Wie has done for golf so far. Stop passing around the buck and the blame game to the media, Nike, etc. Only Wie has reason to blame herself and not others.
Steve

by Hal
I remember having to write a paper in high school on Hamlet's tragic flaw. In the case of Michelle Wie, the tragic flaw is not personal, but societal, and it is shared by virtually everyone with a hand in the affair, and it is the greed that has come with the commercialization of sport. There was a time when a gifted young golfer wanted to win championships, not endorsements, when parents looked to the welfare of their children as people and not as means of an easy retirement, when sports writers were sufficiently endued with the traditions of the sports they covered to call out those who acted in contravention of those traditions, and when governing organizations acted for the interest of the sport and its traditions rather than increasing ticket sales. If amateur golf got the attention it deserved from the media, and governing bodies had the courage to enforce age limits and thus teenagers had to maintain their amateur status in order to compete somewhere, perhaps Michelle Wie would be compiling a record of winning USGA Girls Juniors and US Womens Amateurs that would be preparing her to surpass the likes of Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth and Annika Sorenstam.