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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, August 1, 2005

Wie ties for 3rd; Jang takes title

Advertiser Staff and News Services

Top amateur Michelle Wie holds her award as she poses with the Women's British Open champion Jeong Jang.

Matt Dunham | Associated Press

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SOUTHPORT, England — Michelle Wie said the experience was awesome. The putting certainly wasn't.

Once again, it was a case of leaving too many shots out on the course yesterday for the 15-year-old amateur from Honolulu, just as it was in the third round at the Women's British Open.

"I will be working a lot on my putting during the offseason so hopefully it will be better," Wie said. "I just couldn't read anything. Everything looked flat to me, and that is bad!"

Birdies at the two long closing holes helped Wie finish with a 69 and a share of third place at Royal Birkdale in her first Women's British Open.

Jeong Jang shot a 3-under-par 69 to win the championship by four strokes.

The South Korean, who led after each round, was six strokes ahead at the turn on the way to the first victory of her six-year LPGA career.

Jang finished at 16-under 272, while Sophie Gustafson, the 2000 winner before the championship became a major, shot a 67 and was at 12-under 276.

Wie parred the first 11 holes, missing countless chances along the way, before her one other birdie, at the short 12th. She did not have a bogey in her final round.

She missed a putt from four feet for another birdie at the 16th.

"I just left so many putts out there and I feel a little disappointed by that," Wie said. "I felt like I played pretty well. I'm pretty happy with the way I played my first British Open.

"My putting let me down, basically. I couldn't make anything."

For the tournament, Wie carded 18 birdies, six bogeys and one double bogey.

While some putts may have gotten away, the memories will linger for Wie.

"It's been so awesome, you know," she said. "It's my first time playing over here in this event. It's been so great playing on a golf course with so much history. ... Playing over here, I just can't explain it."

And she was delighted to finish as the leading amateur to win the Smyth Salver.

"It is really a privilege and an honor and I'm really proud of myself from that aspect. It's great," Wie said.

Now she is looking forward to a lengthy break, going to Pittsburgh to visit family, then to New York to go on the David Letterman Show, then to Los Angeles to visit more family, then back to Hawai'i.

She will return to high school on Aug. 24, a prospect which left her with mixed feelings.

"It means I get to see my friends again and I get to be back home. But I'm not ... really ... that ... excited to go back to school and start studying."

Her next tournament will be the Samsung World Championship in California in October, two days after her 16th birthday.

That provoked the key question: Will it be as an amateur or a professional?

"I haven't decided that yet," Wie said. "I don't know if I will decide or how I'm going to decide, if I'm going to decide."

But she stressed that it will be her decision "when I feel I'm ready and if I want to."

Wie's tie for third yesterday was the latest in her successful run this year. Wie earned three runner-up finishes in the SBS Tournament, the McDonald's LPGA Championships and the Evian Masters.

She also was the leader going into the final round of the U.S. Women's Open, advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. (men's) Amateur Public Links and just missed becoming the first female in 60 years to make a 36-hole cut on a PGA Tour event at the John Deere Classic.

Annika Sorenstam, who began the final round tied for second at 8 under, shot a 71 to finish 9-under 279. Her day ended with a double-bogey on the 18th hole. Sorenstam was going for her third major title of the year.

"I'm not so disappointed. I think (Jang) just played incredible," Sorenstam said. "I think she would have been very hard to catch today. So my hat's off to her. She played excellent."

Sorenstam, trying for the 10th major of her career, already knew she had lost by the time she came to the final hole.

Jang went out with Sorenstam as her playing partner knowing the Swede held a 74-0 advantage in tournament victories and a 9-0 lead in major titles.

It didn't seem to matter to the South Korean.

"It's this course," Jang said. "I had a lot of confidence because I hit my driver low. I had a lot of confidence in practice and I didn't tell anybody."

The result was an anti-climatic end to what began as a potentially storybook year for Sorenstam. She won by eight shots at the Kraft Nabisco and by three shots at the LPGA Championship. However, she stumbled at the U.S. Open, finishing 23rd in a tournament won by Birdie Kim.

Entering this week, she had a chance to join Pat Bradley (1986), Mickey Wright (1961) and Babe Zaharias (1950) as the only women to win three majors in one season.