Posted on: Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Wie sets out to prove something to herself, not the world

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

It isn't every day that Ernie Els, winner of more than a dozen professional tournaments and upwards of $20 million, has his game critiqued live on The Golf Channel by a 14-year-old girl just out of braces.

And, in fact, yesterday on the interview stage of the Sony Open in Hawai'i was the first time, as Els' expressions of amazement indicated.

But if there is anything we have learned about Michelle Wie in the two eye-opening years since she blasted her way onto the scene, speaking softly and carrying a big driver, it is that she challenges convention with the same relish that she whacks stratospheric tee shots.

So, when she emerged smiling and confident from an 18-hole practice round, where she traded shots with Els, who has been playing for a paycheck for as long as she has been alive, it underlined the precociousness of the one they have come to call, "the Big Wiesy."

That she is not afraid to boldly take a chance, even when the odds are stacked formidably against her, as they will be on making Friday's 36-hole cut in the Sony Open, speaks to a remarkable spirit of adventure.

Compared to what she's done so far, which includes being the youngest player to win an adult U.S. Golf Association event, when she captured the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links at 13, playing in the Sony Open tomorrow as the youngest to attempt a PGA Tour event, is a mighty leap of faith indeed.

Not unlike Evel Knievel attempting to jump the Grand Canyon, convention says Wie is in over her head, but nobody wants to miss it, just in case.

A media contingent that would have normally moved on after the Mercedes Championships when Tiger Woods did — (motto: "If there's Wie, then there's me") — has stayed on to chronicle the spectacle.

When Wie finished last on a Nationwide Tour stop this summer, few outside Boise, Idaho, saw it. What she does at Waialae Country Club this week, however, will be followed not only by a considerable hometown gallery but an international television audience.

As such, the safe play here this week, the one many have counseled her to make, would have been for Wie to do what she did last year and take her best shot in the Monday qualifier and then dazzle 'em in the Pro-Junior Challenge.

The normal move would have been to occupy a seat for semester finals at Punahou School, where her classmates, those who didn't make arrangements to take their exams early, are sweating out geometry, biology, Japanese and the like, instead of the par 3s with the world watching.

And, clearly some of the professionals who will tee it up around her and be forced into her shadow, wish she would have stayed on campus. They had to grimace a little at her characterization yesterday of pursuing the men's game as "my hobby."

But Wie, as we are learning, plainly isn't one content to follow the worn path when there is an envelope to be pushed or a new horizon to be explored. That, as much as her remarkable game, is what now separates her from the rest of her generation.

Nobody expects Wie to win the Sony Open. And, nobody should. It would be an upset of considerable proportions just for her to make the cut that will claim 65 or so well-accomplished professionals. If she comes in at or near par, she will have scored a substantial victory.

Some see this as a continuation of the gender revolution wrought by Suzy Whaley and Annika Sorenstam, but that is to miss the point and misunderstand the person. This isn't about Wie picking up the banner for change as much as boldly following a personal sense of adventure and seeing where it takes her.

"She's trying to prove something to herself," Els said. "It's not like she's trying to make a change in the world of golf. It's just like, you know, you try and prove something to yourself."

And for Wie, as we are learning each day, that apparently means swinging for the fences.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.