They're crazy over Wie as she finishes fourth
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By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — Call Michelle Wie's golf game crazy. Everyone else did the past four days at the Kraft Nabisco Championship. There is no other way to explain it.
Associated Press
The largest galleries at the LPGA's first major of the year would watch Wie whack a golf ball into the desert horizon and suddenly remember she was 14.
Low amateur Michelle Wie, left, and winner Grace Park show off their hardware after the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
"Crazy," one spectator would say to another, all over the course.
People would see her sink a series of birdie and, especially, par putts of pressurized lengths and say it again: "Crazy."
In Wie's final act of golf craziness — for the month anyway — the Punahou School freshman finished fourth yesterday at Mission Hills Country Club, four strokes behind winner Grace Park. The girl among the greatest women golfers in the world was crazy enough to be disappointed. She is gifted enough to have earned the right.
Wie has been playing LPGA tournaments since she was 12. She has two appearances here on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course, and two top-10 finishes.
She was a legitimate contender for 65 holes this week, finally fading to close with a 1-under-par 71 and a tournament total of 7-under 281.
Even Wie's fade was done with style.
After bogeying the 10th hole to fall four back, she birdied the 11th. Then, oblivious to the Sunday swelter, Wie rescued her wayward tee shots with par putts of between 3 and 10 feet on the final seven holes to salvage the top-five finish she coveted coming in.
"I was tired, but I just made a promise to myself today that even if nothing works out there that I'm still going to fight until the end," Wie said. "And I did. And it was really tough."
Park's grace under pressure on the most famous hole in women's golf ultimately gave the old guard — she turned 25 this month — another week's grace against the onslaught of youth. Park, who moved from Seoul to Honolulu for a few years before settling in Arizona, sank a 6-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to win her first major title, at 11-under.
Aree Song, at 17 the youngest member of the LPGA, had slam dunked a 30-foot eagle putt to tie Park at 10-under moments earlier. Two-time LPGA Player of the Year Karrie Webb took third at 69—279.
Then there is Wie, whose finest LPGA finishes have come on one of the tour's foremost stages.
For four days, she took the first tee to an introduction calling her "one of the most promising players in women's golf." Clearly, she has delivered on that promise, with a national amateur championship (2003 U.S. Women's Public Links) and remarkable performance at the PGA Tour's Sony Open in Hawai'i complementing her LPGA success.
About all she has not done at this tender age is win on the pro tour. She believes she knows what it takes.
"The game has to go to another level," Wie said. "It's one process to get there, but it's a whole different story to get from there to the top. I think right now I'm easily able to get there and into position, but I need to work on my game a little bit harder to jump to the next level of getting better and then to winning."
Here, in an area called "Playground of Presidents," former president Bush watched her play the final day. During the weekend, a community dominated by golf courses, exclusive country club estates and 60-something residents was suddenly swarming with little girls who had ponytails coming out the back of baseball caps —the wannabe Wies.
The object of their affection possesses "crazy" game, dreams that defy convention and — somehow at the core of all that — the ability to still be a kid. It is a rare package that could be worth millions.
"Michelle goes out on a limb to say what she wants to do in her career," said Gary Gilchrist, Wie's coach. "Not many players do that to that level — wanting to compete with the men, wanting to play in the Masters and one day win it.
"Also, she's open to learn. And she's learned that by letting her personality come out, the world will embrace her, which will make her a more exciting player because people get to know who she is, not just as a golfer but as a person."
This week even Wie's learning curve went crazy. A year ago here she played in the final group and shot 76. This year, she broke par when "nothing was really working today."
Wie was focused and composed, in complete control of her game and emotions. She read every putt and picked every club for herself all week. She did not have a three-putt on some of the toughest greens the LPGA plays, hit 70 percent of the greens in regulation and didn't have a bogey from the 17th hole Friday to the 10th yesterday.
"Those are the little things," Gilchrist said. "You just mature as a player over time. It gives you the opportunity to win."
At 14? That's crazy, but in a great way according to Park.
"What Michelle is doing to women's golf I think is tremendous," Park said after taking the traditional winner's leap into the lake beside the final hole. "It's so awesome. I'm not old, but Michelle, Aree Song, I guess Paula Creamer, and a bunch of other players, I thank them for doing what they're doing because they're making this game more exciting."
And crazier by the minute.
Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8043.
