Hawai'i didn't know whether to be happy or sad yesterday, with 16-year-old Tadd Fujikawa taking the second round of the Sony Open in Hawai'i by storm while 17-year-old Michelle Wie was clinging to a golf lifeboat on the other side of Waialae Country Club.

Wie's 6-over 76 yesterday left her 14-over for the tournament, and 14 shots away from the cut she has coveted since her first appearance here at age 14. There would be no comeback this time, no second-round surge to soothe her soul and soften those who scream at her mere presence.

It was mostly more of the same. Her opening drive hooked beyond the ropes. She bogeyed three of her first six holes. Her frustration was obvious on the 18th tee (her ninth), where she pounded her driver into the ground after another errant shot. On the next hole, her drive split the fairway. Wie held her hands up in a touchdown pose.

By the time she got to her seventh hole, much of her gallery had slid over to Fujikawa, the new phenom.

"Today, this week I didn't play well," Wie said. "I'm going to take into account a lot of things happened. I think that if I get my game going back again, it's going to work. I have a lot of game in me, it's just not showing now and I just have to get that coming out. Once it comes out, I think it's going to be good."

Until August last year it was very good. Wie missed the cut here by four in 2006, but went on to win $731,000 on the LPGA tour, finish in the top five six times and make her first men's cut (in Korea).

Since August she is 70-over par. She has been at or over par her past 16 rounds. In her last five appearances in men's events her best finish might be the withdrawal at the John Deere Classic. Wie was last at the Omega European Masters and 84 Lumber Classic, next-to-last at the Casio World Open and fifth-to-last here, ahead of Honolulu's David Chin and Abe Mariano and two players who were disqualified.

"The one thing that pops into my head is I think I just have to get comfortable with my driver again because that is my strong point," Wie said. "Right now it's just, you know, wavering a little bit. ... I feel like once I get my ball in the fairway, it's a done deal."

Her driving was disastrous. She hit just five fairways in two days and ranked 142nd. She was also 142nd in driving distance, at 252 yards, and proximity to the pin on her approach shots, at 55 feet. She was 141st in greens in regulation, with 12.

Maybe her injured right wrist was worse than she let on.

"I gotta believe her wrist is still hurting," Mauna Kea pro Kevin Hayashi said. "In golf you have injuries and even if you say it's OK and try and play it still affects your game. I think she lost a little confidence because of her wrist."

Maybe it's growing pains.

"She's had a growth spurt," claimed Charles Howell III, who also works with David Leadbetter and sees "a ton of talent" in Wie. "She's what, 6-2, 6-3 now? I'm not saying this in a bad way, but she's put a bit of weight on; her body is changing. Most of us were playing the AJGA when we went through that stuff. We definitely weren't playing the Sony Open."

There is no shortage of opinions. Never has been about Wie. Luke Donald, who won the Omega Masters in 2004, is one of the many who believe she should go where she can win.

"I went to college at Northwestern to try and learn to win and I was lucky to win 13 times there," Donald said. "That really set me up and gave me some confidence going into the PGA Tour.

"I think anyone, if their goal is just to come here and make a cut, I don't think you're here for the right reasons. I would say go play the LPGA tour and feel like you're going to win every week, and I think she has the talent to go and win many times out there. Then maybe come back and play the Sony Open again."

Wie will follow her own path, as she has since she was 10. She will take time off and "focus on school, go out with my friends, take it easy and practice my short game and putting." She will not commit to the rest of her 2007 schedule, including the two LPGA events here next month.

All she would say, in a press conference where she was so composed it would have been hard to tell if she had shot 76 or 67, was that "this is the first time" she has needed to heal in a golf life that seems remarkably lengthy for a 17-year-old.

TELEVISION

GOLF CHANNEL PLEASED WITH INITIAL RATINGS

The Golf Channel, which debuted as the exclusive PGA Tour television partner last week, said it is happy the initial ratings for its coverage in Hawai'i.

TGC's coverage of the four-day Mercedes-Benz Championship showed an 18 percent decline in viewership from last year, the final year of ESPN's contract with the PGA.

The first two rounds equated with ESPN's viewership but Sunday's coverage dropped substantially. Last year's Mercedes final featured a playoff between Stewart Appleby and Vijay Singh.

TGC spokesman Dan Higgins said a total of 7.6 million households saw the network's coverage from Kapalua last week, including replays.

"Considering the event, the field (and) it being our first event out of the gate, we've feeling very good, very positive about the future and the rest of the season," Higgins said. "We're very happy, especially given the one that really mattered a lot, which was how we were perceived from a production standpoint and what kind of a product we actually delivered to the viewers and we're very pleased with that."

Higgins said much of the difference in ratings is attributable to the size of the audience TGC reaches.

Higgins said TGC reaches approximately 75 million homes compared to ESPN's 90-plus million.