Wednesday, January
16, 2002
The
Big Wiesy: 12-year-old with Tiger potential
By DOUG FERGUSON
AP Golf Writer
HONOLULU (AP) - Tim
Herron didn't realize he would be playing golf with a 12-year-old
girl in the Sony Open pro-am until a few minutes before he teed
off. Good thing he bumped into Tom Lehman and got a scouting report.
"He said to
game-up and play hard," Herron said. "She almost beat
me."
Word is quickly getting
out on Michelle Wie.
She already has developed
quite a reputation on the islands, and rightfully so. At age 10,
she shot a 9-under-par 64 on her home course, Olomana Golf Links.
"When I was
10, I would shoot 64 for nine holes," Lehman said.
That same year, Wie
(pronounced `Wee') became the youngest player to qualify for the
U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links, losing in the first round.
Last year at the ripe old age of 11, she beat Curtis Cup player
Hilary Homeyer of Stanford to advance to the third round.
Indeed, the face
of golf is getting younger every year.
Tiger Woods caused
quite a stir by winning twice in his first seven PGA Tour events
at age 20, then winning the Masters by a record 12 shots just
three months after he was old enough to drink.
Sergio Garcia qualified
for the Ryder Cup as a 19-year-old and went 3-1-1 in his matches.
Aaron Baddeley won the Australian Open over Greg Norman and Colin
Montgomerie as an 18-year-old amateur. Ty Tryon made the cut in
a PGA Tour event at age 16, and at 17 became the youngest player
to earn his card.
Aree Wongluekiet
played her way into the final group at the LPGA's Nabisco Championship
_ a major, no less _ as a 14-year-old.
This past week, 13-year-old
Jae An qualified for the New Zealand Open and was only two strokes
behind Woods at the halfway point. He tied for 62nd.
The LPGA Tour season
begins next month on the Big Island, and sponsors of the Takefugi
Classic should consider giving Wie a spot in the field.
PGA Tour players
already are impressed.
Davis Love III said
her swing was close to perfection. Lehman, who played in a junior
pro-am with Wie at Waialae Country Club, offered even stronger
praise.
"I call her
the Big Wiesy," he said. "She looks like Ernie Els when
she swings."
A theater-sized TV
screen sits next to the 18th green at Waialae, and when it showed
a larger-than-life image of Wie standing over her approach, the
kid looked as if she belonged.
She might be in seventh
grade at Punahou Middle School. She might be only 12, with braces
and slightly pudgy cheeks. But at 5-foot-10, she looks older and
more developed than some women on the LPGA Tour.
"She looks like
she's 18," Lehman said. "And her golf swing is perfect
_ it's perfect! Her poise is unbelievable. You either have it
or you don't, and this girl has got it."
Wie played the pro-am
from the amateur tees, about 25 yards in front of where the pros
played. With a long, fluid swing, she hit her drive into a fairway
bunker on No. 18, landing about 15 yards ahead of Herron's tee
shot.
Do the math.
"She can bomb
it," said Herron, who was 17th in driving distance on the
PGA Tour last year. "She's going to be a world-beater."
If that's the case,
Woods could be the reason.
Woods is credited
with making golf cool, and there is no doubt his celebrity and
skill will bring countless young people to the game. We just haven't
seen them _ yet.
Tryon started playing
golf two years before Woods won his first U.S. Amateur.
"I never even
heard of Tiger until he was playing his last U.S. Junior,"
22-year-old Charles Howell III said. "The players I really
watched were like Nick Price and Nick Faldo."
Wie is from another
generation. She started playing at 41/2 when her father, a Korean-born
professor at the University of Hawaii, thought it would be a good
sport for her. About the time her game was good enough to take
to the course, Woods had just won the Masters.
"That's when
she got interested, when Tiger was on top," B.J. Wie said
of his only child. "Tiger has the greatest impact on her.
She tries to imitate what Tiger is doing."
Pictures of Woods
at various points in his swing cover her bedroom walls. She even
wants to go to Stanford.
Beyond that, who
knows?
Wie wants to make
the Curtis Cup team this year and play in the Women's Open. Her
dream is not limited to the LPGA Tour.
"The PGA Tour
motivates me more," she said.
Her ultimate goal
is to play in the Masters, and she already has cooked up a plan:
Just win the U.S. Amateur or the U.S. Amateur Public Links, both
men's tournaments.
"Or win a major,"
she said, only half-kidding.
She has big dreams
to go with a big game. It may sound farfetched, and probably is.
But when a 12-year-old girl is hitting 270-yard drives, nothing
seems out of reach.
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