By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Once in a great while Michelle Wie reminds us that she really is just 15 years old after all.

That, for all the booming drives and conquer-the-world plans, she actually is just weeks out of her sophomore year of high school and has several months to go before her junior prom.

These rare moments usually come outside the ropes when she says something typically teenage or breaks into a skip on her way to a practice round.

Yesterday, however, she looked everything you'd expect of someone of her tender years on the grand stage of the final round of the biggest tournament in women's professional golf, the U.S. Women's Open, where she quickly collapsed from a tie for the lead to an eventual 23rd-place finish.

The way in which she exited is sure to refuel the debate about Team Wie's shoot-for-the-moon approach to scheduling — and should.

Yesterday was the first time she'd really entered the final day of a pro event with a share of the lead and it showed right away. Rattled, shaken, pick a word, they all applied to the sudden plummet that began on the first hole, which she double bogeyed. From then on through a total of three double bogeys and seven bogeys in an 11-over-par 82 day, she had only the vaguest resemblance to the confident, focused player of a day earlier.

"Lost and confused — not a little, a lot," Wie admitted afterward on TV.

As her shot at making history as the youngest winner of one of golf's majors swiftly faded into the Colorado afternoon, she'd cover her eyes and shake her pigtail at the birdies that got away and the bogeys that accumulated.

So rapid was the free fall that you could almost hear the fingernails scraping down the leaderboard as she slid from contention and the cameras turned elsewhere.

There is a point not to be missed from that. Some would suggest she needs to play more events with competition her own age. But that is to forget that her level of competition right now is the LPGA Tour, where she would have won $329,000 this year — a top 12 standing for just five tournaments — had she not been an amateur. Yesterday's performance aside, she will eventually win there, be assured.

The LPGA and top amateur tournaments are where she needs to play until she wins with some regularity. Not in the PGA Tour John Deere Classic, which will be her next stop, July 4, the Canadian Tour or the Nationwide Tour, where she has also been.

Playing the hometown Sony Open in Hawai'i right now is one thing. Playing the John Deere or the others is something else completely.

In time, Wie might well make a name for herself on the PGA Tour. But as a 15-year-old, she has plenty of time to do that — after she learns to win in the LPGA.

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