'Frustrating' 73 drops Wie 10 shots off lead
By Bill Huffman
Special to The Advertiser
SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN, Ariz. — Golf can be a fickle game, as Michelle Wie found out during yesterday's third round of the LPGA Safeway International.
Robert Scott Button • Associated Press
Entering the cold and sometimes windy day in a tie for ninth place, the celebrated 15-year-old from Honolulu could do no better than a 1-over-par round of 73. Wie called her round "frustrating,'' as she fell into a tie for 14th place, 10 strokes behind leader Lorena Ochoa of Mexico.
Honolulu's Michelle Wie chips onto the first green during the third round of the LPGA's Safeway International. Wie is in a tie for 14th.
"It was one of those things, where you feel like you played well but the score doesn't show up,'' said Wie, who is at 3-under 213 with one round to go at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club.
"I couldn't get anything going. I just had no momentum. I made a couple (of birdies) on the front nine, but the back nine was pretty much dead.''
Wie wasn't the only one who played so-so, as the leaders never really seized the moment, either.
Ochoa shot 71 to move to 13-under through 54 holes, but her round was plagued by a double bogey at the 16th hole, where she hit her drive beyond the rough and had to take an unplayable lie. That still gave her a one-shot lead over Korea's Soo-Yun Kang, who shot 70.
The best player in women's golf, Annika Sorenstam, was not much better. Her 71 also included a double bogey out of the desert area at the third hole. To Sorenstam's credit, she clawed her way back to within four shots of Ochoa, the big break coming at the 18th hole, where she made a near-impossible birdie from a greenside bunker.
Not that everyone hovered near par. Rosie Jones was 7-under after breaking loose for a near-course-record 64 that included birdies on five of her first six holes. Cristie Kerr had set the previous standard with a 63 during last year's second round.
And 19-year-old rookie Brittany Lincicome was 8-under after an LPGA-best 66, which matched the score she shot last year at the U.S. Women's Open, when Lincicome led after the first round.
But as big as Lincicome's effort was, most of the galleries stuck with Wie, who has become the crowd favorite in this tournament that is being played about 30 miles east of Phoenix. In fact, only Sorenstam is drawing similar galleries.
"I really wanted to shoot another low score,'' sighed Wie, who came back from an opening 73 with a 67 in the second round. "It wasn't raining, and that was a bonus, but it was just one of those days.''
Dressed in black with a Nike swoosh replacing her usual adidas attire, Wie absorbed a bogey at the third hole when she had a bad lie in the rough. But she bounced back with birdies at the fourth and fifth holes, sinking putts from 30 and 7 feet, respectively.
After reeling off 10 straight pars beginning at the sixth hole, which included a three-putt par from 30 feet at the par-5 13th, Wie bogeyed the 16th and 17th holes. She closed her round by missing a relatively easy 8-foot, uphill birdie putt at the 18th.
"I could have made a lot more birdies, but my wedges and irons just weren't getting me that close,'' she said of the up-and-down day that was windy at times with temperatures in the 60s.
"So I definitely want a good finish, hopefully a top 10. And if I shoot a really good score, a top five.''
Even though she said she treats "every tournament the same,'' chances are Wie is thinking, at least a wee bit, about next week and the Kraft Nabisco Championship, where she finished fourth last year. It will be her 20th LPGA event as an amateur, and another chance to win her first professional tournament.
