Compare Michelle Wie to Maria Sharapova

Tim Rosaforte of Golf Digest posted an article today comparing the likes of Maria Sharapova to Michelle Wie. Following this past two weeks intense US Open which saw the retirment of tennis great Andre Agassi and the 9th Grand Slam title of Roger Federer’s storied career, you couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the two women’s sports.Maria Sharapova won the women’s draw for her second grand slam title of her career, and at 19 years old, that speaks volumes. She’s played tough, winning her first slam at age 17, wimbledon two years ago, and inking some of the top sports and modeling contracts in the sport. She’s got it all, and as Tim points out, she doesn’t have to go playing the mens tournaments to prove to herself she can play golf.

Michelle Wie on the other hand seems to be telling the world she has to play mens tournaments, which is all fine and dandy, but shouldn’t she at least try and win a women’s event first, let along a major event? This week she has a 7,500 yard course, on the longer side of men’s tour courses and she just came off a course in Europe that is considered easy by men’s standards, where she finished dead last.
You have to ask yourself the questions Tim posed in his article:

(A.) Is Wie playing men’s golf to raise the level of her game on the
women’s tour?

(B.) Is she playing men’s golf because that’s where the money is?

(C.) Is she playing men’s golf because that’s where she believes
she’ll be playing someday — or is that just part of the marketing strategy?

What is she really playing these tournaments for? Is her father and agent doing the right thing. She is young and like young stars of hollywood, Michelle could be “scarred for life” by what the media will begin to do to her golf career. Sure she has the look, but so did Anna Kournikova, and after the world found out she didn’t have much of a Tennis game she soon fell by the sports wayside and into the pin-up calendar pile. A joke for most sports writers.

Let’s hope her agent, her father, and herself can begin to manage her game a little better than they have been.

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