By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Can golf borrow Kofi Annan for a while or will the United Nations secretary-general send a peace-keeping force to the next LPGA Tournament?

Here it is five days since the flareup began at the U.S. Women's Open, aka the meltdown at Pumpkin Ridge, and there is no end to the controversy in sight.

In the latest installment, The Associated Press reported BJ Wie accused LPGA veteran Danielle Ammaccapane of berating his 13-year-old daughter, Michelle, having said: "You're the worst kid I've ever seen play golf. You'll never make it to the LPGA. I will make money. You will not."

Indications are that Michelle has moved her focus on to Disneyland, where she is scheduled to take a much-needed break this week. Now, if only someone could get the adults to stop behaving like Goofy.

This is where somebody — LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw, for instance — should step in and mediate the squabble.

Who better to get the parties to take a deep breath, cool the rhetoric and realize that it is in everybody's interests to settle their disagreements amicably instead of with Big Berthas at point-blank range?

Some of the akamai pros have already figured out that Wie and the handful of teenagers for whom she is the standard bearer are the not-so-distant future of the LPGA. Whether through enlightened self-interest or compassion, they are the ones who occasionally treat Wie and the others more like little sisters than career-wreckers. And, as NBC golf analyst Mark Rolfing has suggested, they should be encouraged and paired up to mentor the youngsters as "big sisters."

Others, like the 37-year-old Ammaccapane, need help to grasp what their PGA brethren did of a young Tiger Woods, that these fresh new faces and burgeoning talents are going to attract new sponsors, enhance prize money and add fans that can take the LPGA past cult status.

Ammaccapane, her father and anybody else whose jealousy might overrule better judgment, should also understand that bullying a 13-year-old is both disgusting and not the way to win fans and influence galleries.

Wie isn't the first to be thrust onto the pro golf stage at a tender age and stumble over some of the rules and subtleties. And with 14 teenagers having played the Open and more on the way, odds are she won't be the last.

But, she is bright, gracious and, given someone who isn't jumping down her throat, willing to accept advice.

For Wie's sake and that of the game she is destined to figure prominently in for years to come, it behooves golf to broker a truce.