Wie receiving plenty of advice

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

After watching Michelle Wie vault every golf hurdle the past few years one question inevitably followed: What more is possible?

Her answer goes unspoken yet leaves no doubt.

Watch that remarkable swing. Sense the wondrous composure of an unaffected 13-year-old. Feel her passion for the game.

What it all so articulately answers is that anything is possible.

She is walking in the spike steps of Nancy Lopez and Tiger Woods. In Hawai'i, some go back to Duke Kahanamoku to find comparison.

That does not mean it will be easy, despite what Wie calls her "really special talent that God gave me."

She is too young to join her high school team, let alone be an LPGA member (the age requirement is 18). Kapalua's Mark Rolfing, a TV golf analyst suddenly besieged for information about "the local girl," characterizes Wie as being caught in "five years of no-woman's land."

What does she do until she's 18, and beyond if she truly wants to go to Stanford as she says?

For now, she chases national championships and sponsor exemptions when she's not taking honors classes at Punahou and taking on every available challenge in Hawai'i.

After missing the cut in three LPGA tournaments last year, Wie not only made the cut in the Kraft Nabisco Championship — the LPGA's first major — last month, she played in the final group with Annika Sorenstam and eventual winner Patricia Meunier-Lebouc.

Wie tied an amateur record, and introduced herself to thousands of golf fans, by shooting a 6-under 66 in the third round. She then charmed them by joking on national TV that father, BJ, was the "choker of the family."

"I had to keep telling him to chill," said Michelle, who denied her father's plea to hire a caddy at the tournament.

Tomorrow, Wie tees off in the LPGA's Chick-fil-A Charity Championship hosted by Lopez — who knows precisely what the Wies are experiencing.

Lopez earned "phenom" status when she won the New Mexico State Women's Amateur at age 12. For the next few years she won national and international amateur events, was the first woman to receive a full scholarship to the University of Tulsa and twice finished second in the U.S. Women's Open.

An historical LPGA rookie year was followed by a Hall of Fame career. To this day Lopez, 46, is known as the woman who breathed life into the LPGA with her game and gracious personality.

Her first impression of Wie?

"I thought she was really cute," Lopez says. "Her attitude was refreshing. It's nice to see somebody that's 13 with some common sense and a good head on her shoulders."

In Wie's case, "cute" comes in a 6-foot package with braces and a prodigious swing that once blasted a drive 359 yards. Not your average eighth grader, which is why she has so intrigued the golf world.

Wie has been featured on the cover of national magazines. Last month during The Players Championship, considered the PGA Tour's "fifth major," Wie was the first subject broached on The Golf Channel every night. Fred Couples called her swing "the scariest thing you've ever seen."

A driving range full of the world's best golfers lurched to a stunned halt when "The Big Wiesy" — Tom Lehman's nickname for her — began hitting balls Sony Open week.

"It reminded me of Happy Gilmore," Rolfing recalled. "All heads followed her. She'd hit it, all heads would follow the ball into the maintenance building and everybody's jaw dropped. The reality was, only a handful of those guys on the range could hit the ball that far."

What is next?

"I would encourage her to go to school because I was in those shoes and I went to college for two years," says Lopez, whose youngest daughter Torri is two years younger than Wie. "Before that, people were asking me if I was going to turn pro. The thing about life is that you can't go back to those younger years and the Tour will always be there.

"I would encourage my girls to go experience college life and to get better. I think it would be an advantage to go to school and grow up and mature before they have to go out into a grown-up world like the LPGA Tour is."

Lori Castillo Planos, the youngest to win Public Links when she brought the 1979 and '80 trophies to Hawai'i, fondly remembers the years that followed at Stanford and advises Wie to follow her heart to the Cardinal campus.

"There were so many cool people there," Planos recalls. "I went to Stanford with (Olympic speedskater) Eric Heiden and (tennis professional) Andrea Jaeger. We had great teachers, great guest speakers. It was unbelievable, mind-boggling. Education will empower you. Golf will only take you so far."

Hawai'i's Keala O'Sullivan Watson was 17 when she won a bronze medal in diving at the 1968 Olympics. Her advice to the Wies is simple.

"Just let her be a kid, that's all," says O'Sullivan, who was struck by how grounded Wie appeared on TV. "She's missing the opportunity to grow up slowly. It's really important to go through the kid part. ... She's going from 13 to 25 with nothing in between almost, but it can't be helped.

"I had to make a quantum leap. She'll have to do that too."

Fewer and fewer are doubting that Wie can make that leap. Even Planos, who gauges golf games conservatively, sees something unique in Wie. She believes Wie's game had matured immensely and compares her athleticism to Babe Zaharias, considered one of the greatest female athletes ever.

"Clearly she's gifted," Planos says. "Not everyone is given that type of athleticism. And she works very hard at it. She has taken a gift from the time she was 4 and really molded it."

Planos' advice is to focus on consistency and longevity, without holding Wie back. The Wies agree, but it is not as simple as it sounds, particularly on an island with people constantly questioning how hard they push.

But many believe they have the right idea.

"Who doesn't want to see how far she'll go?" asks Bev Kim, who will be inducted into the Hawai'i Golf Hall of Fame tomorrow and sometimes practices with Wie. "How old she is shouldn't be the concern. How much potential would be stifled if we were to restrict her should."

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