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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, January 16, 2002

12-year-old wunderkind following in Tiger's tracks

By Doug Ferguson
Associated Press

Tim Herron didn't realize he would be playing golf with a 12-year-old girl in last week's Sony Open pro-am until a few minutes before he teed off. Good thing he bumped into Tom Lehman and got a scouting report.

Michelle Wie routinely hits 270-yard drives. "She can bomb it," says pro Tim Herron.

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"He said to game-up and play hard," Herron said. "She almost beat me."

Word is quickly getting out on Michelle Wie.

She already has developed quite a reputation in Hawai'i, and rightfully so. At age 10, she shot a 9-under-par 64 on her home course, Olomana Golf Links.

"When I was 10, I would shoot 64 for nine holes," Lehman said.

That same year, Wie (pronounced "Wee") became the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links, losing in the first round. Last year at the ripe old age of 11, she beat Curtis Cup player Hilary Homeyer of Stanford to advance to the third round.

Indeed, the face of golf is getting younger every year.

Tiger Woods caused quite a stir by winning twice in his first seven PGA Tour events at age 20, then winning the Masters by a record 12 shots just three months after he was old enough to drink.

Sergio Garcia qualified for the Ryder Cup as a 19-year-old and went 3-1-1 in his matches. Aaron Baddeley won the Australian Open over Greg Norman and Colin Montgomerie as an 18-year-old amateur. Ty Tryon made the cut in a PGA Tour event at age 16, and at 17 became the youngest player to earn his card.

Aree Wongluekiet played her way into the final group at the LPGA's Nabisco Championship — a major, no less — as a 14-year-old.

This past week, 13-year-old Jae An qualified for the New Zealand Open and was only two strokes behind Woods at the halfway point. He tied for 62nd.

The LPGA Tour season begins next month on the Big Island, and sponsors of the Takefugi Classic should consider giving Wie a spot in the field.

PGA Tour players already are impressed.

Told that Wie shot 64 as a 10-year-old, Tom Lehman replied: "When I was 10, I would shoot 64 for nine holes."

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Davis Love III said Wie's swing was close to perfection. Lehman, who played in a junior pro-am with Wie at Waialae Country Club, offered even stronger praise.

"I call her the 'Big Wiesy'," he said. "She looks like Ernie Els (aka 'The Big Easy') when she swings."

A theater-sized TV screen sits next to the 18th green at Waialae, and when it showed a larger-than-life image of Wie standing over her approach, the kid looked as if she belonged.

She might be in seventh grade at Punahou School. She might be only 12, with braces and slightly pudgy cheeks. But at 5 feet 10, she looks older and more developed than some women on the LPGA Tour.

"She looks like she's 18," Lehman said. "And her golf swing is perfect — it's perfect! Her poise is unbelievable. You either have it or you don't, and this girl has got it."

Wie played the pro-am from the amateur tees, about 25 yards in front of where the pros played. With a long, fluid swing, she hit her drive into a fairway bunker on No. 18, landing about 15 yards ahead of Herron's tee shot.

Do the math.

"She can bomb it," said Herron, who was 17th in driving distance on the PGA Tour last year. "She's going to be a world-beater."

If that's the case, Woods could be the reason.

Woods is credited with making golf cool, and there is no doubt his celebrity and skill will bring countless young people to the game. We just haven't seen them — yet.

Tryon started playing golf two years before Woods won his first U.S. Amateur.

"I never even heard of Tiger until he was playing his last U.S. Junior," 22-year-old Charles Howell III said. "The players I really watched were like Nick Price and Nick Faldo."

Wie is from another generation. She started playing at 4 1/2 when her father, a Korean-born professor at the University of Hawai'i, thought it would be a good sport for her. About the time her game was good enough to take to the course, Woods had just won the Masters.

"That's when she got interested, when Tiger was on top," B.J. Wie said of his only child. "Tiger has the greatest impact on her. She tries to imitate what Tiger is doing."

Pictures of Woods at various points in his swing cover her bedroom walls. She even wants to go to Stanford.

Beyond that, who knows?

Wie wants to make the Curtis Cup team this year and play in the Women's Open. Her dream is not limited to the LPGA Tour.

"The PGA Tour motivates me more," she said.

Her ultimate goal is to play in the Masters, and she already has cooked up a plan: Just win the U.S. Amateur or the U.S. Amateur Public Links, both men's tournaments.

"Or win a major," she said, only half-kidding.

She has big dreams to go with a big game. It may sound farfetched, and probably is. But when a 12-year-old girl is hitting 270-yard drives, nothing seems out of reach.