Wednesday, June 6, 2001
Eleven-year-old girl takes
on Hawaii's top male golfers
By JAYMES SONG
Associated Press Writer
HONOLULU (AP) — Michelle Wie is having
trouble finding competition on the golf course, and she's only
11.
Wie, who says some of her sixth-grade classmates
call her a “golfing geek,” has already defeated the
top women golfers in Hawaii and is now taking on the men.
She made history Tuesday when she teed off
in the Manoa Cup at the Oahu Country Club. She is the first female
— and the youngest player — to qualify for the 94-year-old
tournament. She made the field of 64 amateurs with a 5-over-par
round from the men's tees.
But Wie lost her first-round match 3 and
2 to Doug Williams, a Los Angeles businessman.
Last month, Wie won Hawaii's premier women's
amateur tournament, the 54-hole Jennie K. Wilson Invitational,
where she finished with a 4-over 220 total, beating defending
champion Bobbi Kokx by nine strokes.
Wie plans next year to try and break 13-year-old
Morgan Pressel's record as the youngest-ever U.S. Women's Open
qualifier.
The 5-foot-9 Wie said her goal is to “play
in the PGA and win lots of tournaments.”
That's PGA, not LPGA.
“A friend of mine told Michelle, 'You're
the next Se Ri Pak,'” her father, Byung Wook Wie of Honolulu,
said, referring to the LPGA star from South Korea. “She was
kind of frustrated. She wants to be the next Tiger Woods,”
said her father, who is also her caddie.
Wie spends four hours every weekday at Olomana
Golf Links, where she once shot a 64 on the par-73 course.
“I don't like going to the mall,”
Wie said. “I'm not really like the other girls. I just like
to go out on the golf course and play.”
Her daily routine includes 45 minutes of
putting, 30 minutes on the short game, 45 minutes on the range
and then nine holes.
Wie spends seven to eight hours practicing
on the weekends, but she still maintains straight A's in school.
“She really enjoys golf,” said
her father, a University of Hawaii professor. “We never force
her to come to practice, we would never do that.”
Wie said golf, which she started playing
when she was 4, is simply “fun.”
“She was born with instincts,”
her father said. “I think she understands the theory of golf
and the swing. She's a quick visual learner.”
Wie, a Korean-American, said she admires
other women golfers of Korean descent like Pak, Grace Park and
Mi Hyun Kim, but it's Tiger Woods she idolizes because he's “good
at everything.”
Like Woods, she wants to attend Stanford
before turning pro.
Wie, who wears a size 91/2 men's golf shoe,
said she's the tallest girl in her class, and there's only one
boy who is taller. That doesn't bother her because she's not too
interested in them. Nor does she have the time for them.
“I really don't like boys, they're
kind of annoying,” she said. “But I love golf.”
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