Wie's a marketing magnet
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Here, where the finest female golfers in the world meet each year for the LPGA's first major, Michelle Wie is being called the tour's "most marketable star." That gives the tour a most perplexing problem going into today's Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Wie, 14, is not an LPGA member. She is limited to six sponsor exemptions a year by the tour's 18-year age requirement and her desire to wring all she possibly can out of her time at Punahou School. Not just the honors classes in biology and geometry, or medieval history, PE and Japanese — her favorite class for at least the next 10 minutes. Wie craves the companionship of the other freshmen who know and care nothing about golf.
She could play in eight official events this year, if she qualifies for the U.S. Women's and Weetabix Women's British opens. She'd rather not.
"The British Open is right after the Evian Masters, right?" Wie asked her new best friends in the media yesterday. "I want to go to Paris right after. So I don't know. I don't think I'll play. ... I went to France when I was 4 and I always wanted to go back."
When you're 14 and so formidable you left the PGA Tour in awe at January's Sony Open in Hawai'i, weighing Weetabix against the Arc de Triomphe is an easy call. When you've come to know the national and international media by sight, if not by first name, since finishing a shocking ninth here a year ago, meeting the press is "like talking to people, like, you know."
Wie walked into yesterday's press conference with a grin, sat in front of a swarm of cameras and recorders and calmly folded the legs that hold up her now 6-foot, half-inch body. The freshman who drives implausible 300-yard guided missiles off the tee and drops 60-foot bombs on PGA Tour putting greens now appears absolutely imperturbable under the golf world's glaring microscope.
Asked an impossibly long two-part question, Wie grinned again and started with, "Well, to answer your first question, if I remember it ..."
She would go on to talk about her goal of playing better this year so she can "jump in the lake," or take the traditional winner's dive into the water beside the 18th green.
Asked about her experience with "links golf" as she heads to England for the Curtis Cup in June, Wie suggested it would be "really interesting to see what a pot bunker really looks like."
She was charming, the latest addition to the arsenal for, arguably, the LPGA's "most marketable star." A year ago here, Wie was amiable but out of her element with the media. Now she is at ease. It is the perfect complement for a game that has matured through the grind of becoming the youngest U.S. Women's Public Links champion and that pressure-packed performance at Waialae Country Club in January.
Patricia Meunier-Lebouc, who played in the final group with Wie and ultimately won here last year, noticed a dramatic change when she watched the Sony.
"She was a young kid, by her attitude, last year," said Meunier-Lebouc. "I found out on TV that, wow, she really improved her game. Her game is unbelievable and that's part of golf, but the biggest part is attitude and, wow, I could not even believe how she was handling things on TV. ... I don't know how she's going to handle the next few years, but she's like no other girl, that's for sure."
LPGA commissioner Ty Votaw has the power to allow Wie membership if she petitions his office before she is 18. The Wies insist they are not interested, and Votaw is thankful he won't have to make the decision soon.
"Michelle Wie is a very impressive young woman," Votaw said yesterday. "I give her parents an enormous amount of credit for making her as grounded and as impressive as she is as a person. And as I've said to anybody who's asked me, if she continues to develop as a person and a player, she has the potential to achieve many great things in golf, not just necessarily women's golf.
"We have to do everything we can to make sure that, not only for Michelle but for every other player that comes behind her, we make the dream of playing the LPGA Tour as good as the reality."
NOTE: Michelle Wie tees off at 8:35 a.m. HST today, with Carin Koch and Stephanie Louden. The threesome plays again tomorrow, beginning at 5:40 a.m. HST.
Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8043.
