KAHUKU — In talking about Michelle Wie the other day, LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens was moved to declare:

"She owns a (Tour) card and we've been watching her for six years and a lot of people are cheering for her to fulfill the potential we've all seen in her."

Left unsaid, but not unappreciated, was that the LPGA is poised to be Wie's biggest, if officially silent, cheering section this week.

Which was why Wie's smooth 6-under-par 66 yesterday for a share of second place, one shot back of Angela Stanford, in the opening round of the SBS Open at Turtle Bay loomed large.

When the Golf Channel cut away from the North Shore to go to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, it breathlessly — and regularly — promised its viewers "Michelle Wie updates."

It did not promote or provide them for anyone else.

If there was one player out on the Palmer Course at Turtle Bay who could take the focus off — and how is this for riveting drama — PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem playing at Pebble Beach, it was Wie.

If there was one name on the North Shore that could remind folks that, hey, guess what, the LPGA is starting its 2009 season this week, it would be a resurgent Wie. Love her or loathe her — and the opinions might be 60/40 — the 19-year-old Wie making her way up a leaderboard after the trials and tribulations of the last three years makes for compelling human theater. People will follow her to see a win as much as a four-alarm crash and burn. Whatever meager midweek galleries there were clearly belonged to Wie.

In a new season that opens with grande dame Annika Sorenstam in retirement, 2008 top money winner Lorena Ochoa on vacation and rookies trying to establish themselves, Wie is the most bankable commodity the LPGA has here. In a contentious week in which the LPGA is dumping SBS as its longtime Korean TV partner for rival J Golf, a move that could leave Hawai'i without a year-opening tournament in the future, Wie can provide a diversion from the acrimony.

And yesterday, in her debut as a card-carrying member of the LPGA, Wie was up to the task. With eight birdies and two bogeys, Wie was one of two afternoon starters able to mount a charge.

To paraphrase that well known women's golf afficionado Jack Nicholson, this week the LPGA not only wants Wie on that leaderboard, it needs Wie on the leaderboard.

To their delight — if not exactly overt hand-clapping — she is right there, front and center.

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