LEBANON, Ohio — Michelle Wie, 15-year-old; Michelle Wie, girl.

Pick your poison, if you're a guy.

Either way, she's a phenom. But clearly what made news here at the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship at Shakier Run Golf Club is that Wie was beating the boys.

Make that the men.

The two victims Thursday — C.D. Hockersmith and Jim Renner — were both good sports about it.

Like the other 155 men in the 156-player field, they knew they would get grief from their buddies if they got beat by a girl, and rest assured, they said after their losses, they will get it.

"I'd do the same thing to them if they were in my position," Hockersmith said. "It's the nature of it, being boys."

Hockersmith, 20, said that the hubbub of playing Wie was more than he could handle. Wie birdied three of the first four holes. On the par-4 fourth hole he hit a tree and some spectators ("I didn't know what the day was going to bring after that," he said) and on the par-3 fifth, he hit his ball in the water on the left side of the green.

"The nerves were from playing her in front of the crowd," said Hockersmith, who attends Ball State University. "On No. 5, she hit it right and I felt like I had a chance, but I pulled it into the water. I knew I was in trouble out there after that shot. I was five down after five holes."

One doesn't need a class in "Statistics" to know what one's chances are when one is five down after five holes. Hockersmith is taking "Statistics" this summer. He drove back to Richmond, Ind., after Wednesday's round to take his evening class.

He said the only thing that surprised him about Wie is that he expected her to be taller based on what he saw on TV.

"But I guess TV makes you look a little taller," he said. "But she's definitely tall."

Wie is 6-foot-1.

She closed out Hockersmith with a great long-iron shot into a tree-protected green on the par-4, 475-yard 13th hole, the same hole she birdied in the afternoon to put her two up on Jim Renner.

"An excellent shot," said Hockersmith, noting that after seeing shots like that, "It won't feel bad saying I lost to Michelle Wie."

Renner, a 21-year-old senior at Johnson & Wales University in Miami, Fla., barely made it to the first tee in time for his afternoon round with Wie, because he had received bad information on the practice range about his scheduled tee time.

"I had to run up there," he said. "Maybe that was good I was winded. I didn't have time to get nervous."

But, clearly, he wasn't himself on the greens: he missed short putts on one two, six and eight that could have made it a totally different match.

He was 3-down after nine holes, but picked up holes on Nos. 10 and 12 to shave Wie's lead to one.

On No. 15, when he was four feet from the pin and she was 30 feet away in the rough, he thought he might win the hole by concession, but she holed the chip and halved the hole.

Will Renner get it from his buddies?

"Oh yeah, I know it's coming," he said. "I'm trying to think what I was doing when I was 15. It certainly isn't what she's doing. It's very impressive how she handles herself out there. It's not often you get intimidated by a 15-year-old. I'm 21 and I'm thinking, 'I don't think I'm even doing half this stuff right, and she seems like she has it all together.' "