Archive for August, 2006

Michelle Wie stands at fourth in the list of Women’s rankings jumping slowly from her fall in previous rankings. Big news is Lorena Ochoa who has been on a rampage as of late and creeping closer and closer to Annika Sorenstam in the overall World Women’s Golf Rankings.

The top ten is rounded out as follows.

1. Annika Sorenstam

2. Lorena Ochoa

3. Karrie Webb

4. Michelle Wie

5. Cristie Kerr

6. Se Ri Pak

7. Juli Inkster

8. Mi Hyun Kim

9. Natalie Gulbis

10. Paula Creamer

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, Women’s, World, Rankings

Michelle Wie, after firing her caddie a few weeks ago Michelle Wie has found a new man to carry her bag. Golfweek.com has just reported that Andrew Lano II will carry her bag for the next two events.

Michelle Wie is slate to play again in two weeks during the European Tour’s Omega European Masters during the weekend of September 7-10 and then back at the PGA tours 84 Lumber Classic during the following weekend of September 14-17.

She is also scheduled as of right now to play the Samsung World Championship during October 12th-15th, 2006 and the Casio World Open during November 23-26th, 2006 on the Japan Tour. Sources didn’t say if she would be using Lano during those final two events but our guess would be that if she played well in the first two events in september that he would stick around for the final two events of ‘06.

Andrew Lano has caddied mostly for Kenny Perry during the last 20 years on the PGA tour and has never met Michelle Wie before. It is reported that Lano will hang with Michelle Wie and the Wie Camp in Hawaii (Michelle’s home state) to get to know her, her family, and her game.

Source at GolfWeek

technorati tags:MichelleWie, Michelle, Wie, Caddie, Golf, LPGA, Pictures

Michelle Wie will be playing at the 84 Lumber classic which will be played during the week of September 11th to the 17th, 2006. Michelle Wie is accepting her sponsors exemption to play in the Men’s PGA tour event along with some of the PGA tour’s top players Vijay Singh, Aaron Baddeley, Ben Curtis and more.

Also joining Michelle Wie on sponsors exemption will be Australian teenage sensation Jason Day who has stormed through the amateurs to turn pro this year. They will try and work their magic on the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort.
Michelle will no doubt just try to hang with the men and make the cut will others will try battle for the outright lead and the Classic Championship. All this and a Ryder cup coming will make the next few months pretty exciting.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, Lumber, Classic, Jason, Day

Somebody recently posted this 19 second video of Michelle Wie’s violation during her 2006 British Open attempt over at YouTube.com. I’m not sure if making it readily available to people is very legal but I thought I would embed it into my website until it gets taken off of YouTube.

If you look at the video it’s tough to blame Michelle for getting a little upset that she received a two stroke penalty for this little moss bump. She let her club touch the sand behind her ball, as most of us do. The only difference was that right behind Michelle’s ball was a piece of moss that was touching her ball. She moved the moss as she took her club back and off of it, which essentially moved her ball?

I can’t really tell if there was ball movement but rules are rules, if you can’t do it, don’t think you can get away with it, especially if you have television cameras and a couple million people watching you.

I had a little trouble embedding the video so here’s a link to the youtube location. Michelle Wie Rules Violation

Michelle Wie had four top 5 finishes this year and showed a poise both on the course and in post round interviews, something she lacked a great deal of before turning pro.

Michelle did have trouble from her critics which for the most part she handle very well. She is only 16 and was able to brush off the remarks about her appearances on the PGA tour competing against men and failing to make the cut in her two showings.

The question on most peoples minds isn’t will Michelle Wie find another caddie after firing Greg Johnston but will she win a tournament in next years season. Forget about her making the cut in a men’s tournament, if her agent and her father Know what’s best for her image they’ll refuse her sponsors exemptions and focus on winning something.

Even if she does make the cut, my guess is there will still be a lot of grumbling from critics, especially if it’s before she wins an LPGA event.

So here’s your chance. Tell us what you think.

Do you think Michelle Wie will win a tournament, an LPGA tournament event, during the 2007 season?

Leave your Comment below by filling out the form, if you can’t see the comment form, click on the Comments Link below.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, Winning, Tournament, 2007, Golf

Done so soon, it seems like the LPGA tour just got started and Michelle Wie just started to get on a, well, somewhat of a roll, minus the season ending with a poor finish at the Women’s British Open and Michelle Wie firing her Caddie Greg Johnston.

But all good things must end right? Well, maybe not end, but end for now, Michelle Wie must go back to school now at Punahou on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. She will return for her senior year at the highschool and not compete (as far as we know) in anymore of the tournaments remaining this year on the LPGA tour.

In an interview with local television news station KGMB9 in Honolulu, Hawaii Michelle wie had this to say about being put under a microscope and disected after every mistake, miss read putt, or poor choice of wardrobe.

“I actually enjoy it,” Wie told KGMB9 when she arrived at the Honolulu
International Airport Sunday. “If people aren’t talking about me, if
people aren’t arguing about what I should do or should not do, then the
problem relays there.”

Pretty good words for a 16 year old just trying to live up to all the hype brought on by her parents, agents, and endorsements. Although much of her career has been scrutinized, especially this past weeks firing of caddie Greg Johnston Michelle Wie has remained realatively calm and light hearted about the subject as is evident from her previous comments to the news station quoted above.

She will, however, have to start looking for a new caddie later this school semester and then try and firgure out her putting game. Although she has a cloud of controversy with the way her parents may or may not be handling her golf career, let’s remember she’s just a golfer and should be treated as such. Let’s just wait til she gets another off-season of practice in beautiful Hawaii.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, LPGA, Greg, Johnston

Michelle Wie has a powerful and consistent golf swing that you see more and more young female golfers emulating everyday.

Her flexability is steps above most women and even men on the LPGA and PGA tours while her power off the tee matches or exceeds males her same age and matches men on the pro tour.

If you want to see a great breakdown of the 16 year old Hawaii residents swing, check out this link.

Michelle Wie’s Golf Swing

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, Swing, Picture, Video

The Honolulu Advertiser, a local newspaper to the islands of Hawaii, recently published a not so shocking support article to Wie’s decision (or should we assume her father’s decision) to fire caddie Greg Johnston.

Although the general sports media and for that matter the public is beginning to turn on Michelle Wie and how her father and agent and mother are handling her professional career, an article chastising them is a little unwarranted.

I realize that it is a hometown newspaper and you must support you local girl, but let’s be real, don’t you think the excuses are running out and Michelle Wie should just tell the public she’s going to win when she wants to. Also blaming her poor putting, as the article did, on Johnston is a bit of a far jab at support.

I don’t see Greg Johnston in huge sunglasses and big hoop earings trying to putt. He’s there to give his opinion and as “Team Wie” has said before, Michelle Wie has to learn to be comfortable with her own reading of greens.

To read the article by Ferd Lewis visit it at Wie needs to bag one that works.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, Caddie, Greg, Johnston, LPGA, Golf

The LPGA finally redid it’s formula to calculate the world rankings which had Michelle Wie in the number two spot for most of the past year. With the new formula Michelle Wie dropped to 7th from her number two spot probably to the satisfaction of many LPGA golfers that had wins over the last two years but were still ranked behind the 16 year old Hawaii Resident.

Previous calculations considered the previous 15 events rather than a more reasonable number like 40 that the men use over a two year period. Michelle Wie had played in just 15 events during that period when she got her ranking and that was before turning pro!

The new rankings use 35 tournaments over a 104 week period to score and rank players.

This new system may stand to take some of the pressure off Michelle Wie who has been coming under a storm of media pressure. She has been at the middle of a lot fo controversy from the most recent news that she fired her caddie Greg Johnston to the ongoing debate as to whether or not she should play in Men’s PGA tournaments.

I guess when you’re young and immature and don’t really know how to deal with people very well you’ll do things like this. Yesterday, Michelle Wie’s camp announced that Greg Johnston would no longer be her caddie.

After a rough British Open Finish where Wie just didn’t have solid play she decided to oust her caddie of only a year, by having her agent call up Greg Johnston and tell him the news.

The Wie family brought Johnston on last year in a take it or leave it type deal that basically swiped him from veteran LPGA tour player Julie Inkster. In Julie’s own words she said of the Wie family’s actions:

“It would have been nice to get a phone call from the [Wie] family,
saying this is what we’re thinking of doing,” Inkster told me after she
took the first-round lead at the Women’s British Open last week with a
66. “I’d had Greg for 11 years. It’s not like I was some rookie.

“But that’s not the way they [the Wies] do things. Instead they gave
him a take-it-or-leave-it in the middle of my season, right before the
Solheim Cup. I don’t blame him. He’s got kids to think about. But that
didn’t sit well.”
Then, during this years Women’s British Open Michelle Wie incurred another penalty for brushing away some moss in a trap during her backswing. The word is that Johnston told Michelle that she couldn’t do it but she did it anyway. She was then in tears outside the scorers table because of the penalty where her parents B.J. and Bo were angry and getting in the middle of things.

I am a Michelle Wie fan, obviously, and I do realize she is only 16. But the professional tour in any sport is no place for your parents to be getting into the middle of things. Soccer moms (and dads) should stay on the sidelines. You don’t see Julie Inkster’s parents rushing the table to get some answers.

As for firing your caddie, who am I to say you can’t fire your caddie. But maybe you should start teaching your daughter to be a grownup since you’ve trust her on this large stage and have her take some responsibility. Besides she’s the one who is missing the key putts, and shank the key shots.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, Caddie, Fired, LPGA, Golf