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Posted at 5:06 p.m., Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Parents' pressure largely to blame for Wie's failings

By Ed Sherman
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — The pipeline continues to roll out new kids. This week's U.S. Women's Open will feature 12-year-old Alexis Thompson, the youngest player ever to qualify for the event.

That makes Michelle Wie seem positively old. Once she was the 12-year-old girl who quickly became the talk of golf. Wie stunned and excited us with five top-five finishes in women's major championships and missed the cut in a PGA Tour event by one stroke all before her senior year of high school.

But that all seems a distant memory as she gets ready to play in her fifth Open, believe it or not, beginning Thursday at Pine Needles in Southern Pines, N.C.

Now a veteran of 17, Wie comes into this Open drawing comparisons not to Tiger Woods or Annika Sorenstam but to Jennifer Capriati, Ty Tryon and other athletic prodigies who couldn't cope with too much too soon.

Coming off a wrist injury, Wie had to pull out of her first tournament back in competition. She was in danger of shooting 88 or worse, a score that would have prevented her from playing in LPGA events for the rest of the year. Then she finished dead last in the LPGA Championship, 10 shots behind the next worst player in the field.

Her slide, though, predates her wrist problems, which began with a fall while she was jogging during the winter. She hasn't broken par in her last 20 rounds dating to last summer. With the way she is playing, she could be hard-pressed to break 80 on an Open course.

"In the last year or 18 months, the swing is technically not as good as it was," NBC golf analyst Dottie Pepper said. "The fluidity was not there. It's shorter. The tempo was waning. This is about more than the injury."

Pepper, a 17-time winner on the LPGA Tour, believes she is watching a potential train wreck of massive proportions. She sees a young woman under a great deal of stress whose demeanor has changed completely.

In a piece for Sports Illustrated, Pepper slammed Wie, saying she came across as a "self-centered, unapologetic brat" for failing to apologize to host Sorenstam after pulling out of her tournament.

"You could tell she's not happy," Pepper said in a phone interview. "Everything seems forced and programmed. Before she was happy-go-lucky and had a certain innocence. That's totally gone. She's under a crazy spotlight. How do you not melt down? It's sad."

Pepper contends money (what else?) is the root of the problems, and she puts the blame squarely on Wie's parents, B.J. and Bo, and her handlers. Wie is reportedly set to earn more than $20 million in endorsement money, but the deals are contingent on her playing and playing well.

The decision to have Wie play in three men's tournaments on three continents last fall is the most extreme example of excess and overexposure. She clearly wasn't ready to play, failing to break 76.

When asked if greed is an issue, Pepper said, "That's what seems to be going on here. Nobody has yet to say, `No, stop.' If she has all these good people, why are bad decisions being made? There has been so much push, push, and it has been mostly by mom and dad."

Pepper believes Wie was wise to withdraw from the John Deere Classic next month. "That's the first good decision," she said.

Jim Fannin, who works with athletes on their mental approach to competition, saw how poor choices ruined Tryon. Fannin worked with Tryon when the Florida teen became, at 17, the youngest player to qualify for the PGA Tour through Q-school.

Tryon's stay in the big leagues was short-lived. Fannin contends he got distracted by things besides golf.

"I saw him getting involved with the agencies and the endorsements, how to sign an autograph," Fannin said. "He abandoned the routine that got him there. He got involved with all kinds of things that had nothing to do with putting the ball in the hole."

Fannin said the key for Wie is to keep things simple. No small task there.

"She's probably getting advice from a lot of different people," he said. "When you throw all that advice on the table, over time it gets overwhelming, it freezes you. You don't know what to do. Then you go the other way and say, `I don't want to take any advice.' That's just as bad."

The risk is that Wie's game could deteriorate. In an interview today at the Open, Wie said her injured left wrist "has its good days and bad days."

Todd Sones, who operates Impact Golf at White Deer Run in Vernon Hills and works with several pros, has seen many players adjust their swings to compensate for an injury. The end result is a messed-up swing.

"It's really hard to strike down on a golf ball if you know it is going to hurt," Sones said. "An injury to the left wrist is the scariest one, considering where it is at impact. You can't force the game of golf. Every time you force it, you get in trouble."

Wie, though, insists she wants to keep playing. But getting beaten up on the course won't do much for her psyche.

Wie said she has been getting through this rough period by talking to friends.

Still sounding like a 17-year old, she said, "Just listen to their troubles for once and just talk about silly stuff, be stupid, be goofy, just not have a care in the world."

Pepper believes the best therapy for Wie is to be with her friends in Hawaii, concentrating on preparations for her freshman year at Stanford.

"It doesn't do the companies she's involved with any good to have this situation happening," Pepper said. "They would understand. They should be saying, `Let's wait and put the pieces back together when the time is right.' "

Wie has plenty of time on her side.

She has the talent to develop into a transcendent player on the LPGA Tour and beyond. As Pepper said, "She was hitting shots that most of the girls couldn't comprehend."

But for the first time, the worst-case scenario is a possibility. Poor management and bad choices could lead to a future that goes unfulfilled.

Have we seen the best of Michelle Wie?

"I don't know," Pepper said. "There's the possibility we've seen the best the situation will let her have. That would be very, very sad."