READER LETTER

Media hype? Readers debate Michelle Wie's status

From Staff Reports

Recently, in his Golf Gear News blog, Bruce Stasch had a few thoughts on Michelle Wie firing her caddie, Greg Johnston, and whether Wie's popularity could wane while she battles to get her first professional victory.

"Unless Ms. Wie starts winning tournaments, she too will be old news. Faster than you can say Britney Spears. Think of it as disposable celebrity," wrote Stasch.

WorldGolf.com readers were quick to respond. Here's what some of them had to say.

The Wies aren't doing the PR work

Who knows Bruce, maybe staying winless for now could be the best thing that ever happened to Michelle. By the way, I really don't see the Wie machine doing a lot of pushing to get in the public eye all the time. They haven't even got a website up and running yet. I'd say from a business point of view they aren't being very smart if pushing her for financial gain is the main objective. I also notice that the media mostly prints anything negative otherwise you never see anything.

From now on, it's Mi-Wie Wie gives pro golf a big boost Blog: Is Michelle Wie hurting Annika's popularity?

- TW

Young guns have been pea-shooters

Heh, "Young Guns." Not a US player under 30 ranked in the World Top 30, right? Young Pea-Shooters, maybe. Of course, there are some fine young non-American guns who are playing well.

- Kiel Christianson

Michelle great in majors

Michelle and the majors ...

2004 - 14 years old
Woman's US Open - T13
Kraft Nabisco - 4th

2005 - 15 years old
Woman's US Open - T23
LPGA Championship - 2nd
Kraft Nabisco - T14
Woman's British Open - T3

2006 -16 years old
Woman's US Open - T3
LPGA Championship - T5
Kraft Nabisco - T3
Woman's British Open - T26

For those not wanting to do the counting, that's six top-5 finishes out of 10 starts in Major Championships before she's even turned 18. In 2005 and 2006 she finished T2nd at the Evian Masters, a tournament with a field as strong as any of the Majors. It's an insult to Michelle to consider her a circus act. The mental midgets who make a career out of dismissing what she has accomplished are only showing their ignorance of the game.

- shrodr

Top-5 finishes are meaningless

The number of top 5s does not mean anything when judging the greatness of a player. Only, I stress only, the number of wins matters. You may again find the real old excuse of "she is only 16". Ok, let's just take the wins normalized by the age. Fair enough for you? MW is 0, which is dead last in LPGA!!! So just SHUT UP till she changes this FACT!!!

- Stop!

Look at the Google scoreboard

Michelle Wie: 5,780,000 Google hits today and 6,600 news items. Nobody could afford to pay for publicity like this and Michelle is on vacation.

Paula Creamer: 454,000 Google hits today and 1,990 news items and she is playing this week.

Morgan Pressel: 177,000 Google hits today and 311 news items and she is playing this week.

Annika Sorenstam: 1,570,000 Google hits today and 4,270 news items and she is playing this week.

You got to admit, Michelle is like Cold Fusion to the blogging and media world.

Tiger Woods remains king of the golf world with 28,900,000 Google hits today and 16,400 news items … WOW!

- One-Putt

August 16, 2006

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