Archive for December, 2006

Surprise, surprise. Michelle Wie is near the top of a short list of overrated athletes over at AOL Sports.

The poll was conducted for the AOL Sports reading public and allows you to vote from a list of 12 “athletes” to see who was the most overrated of 2006.

Michelle Wie is second with 17% of the overall votes out of 126,117 people voting so far. She sits just behind Bode Miller who leads with 18%.

Shows you what the media know. These are all sports athletes who, aside from Bode Miller who might be the only one who bought into his own hype, were pushed up onto the top of their respective sports by the media.

Michelle Wie may be bringing some of the media attention onto herself by playing mens tournaments but she is probably doing what everyone else would do in her position, and that’s play where the most money is. It’s her job now, (although she is planning on attending stanford next year), her job is golf and you go where the money is for your job. Plus it looks like she’s enjoying whacking the ball around with the fellas.

Anyway, head over and check out where Michelle Wie stands now. She maybe moving up in the world past Bode by the time you read this.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie

After Michelle Wie earned a reported $20 Million in her first year as a pro, about 18 million than most college graduates will earn in their lifetime, Michelle Wie has announced that she will be heading off to college next year.

Michelle Wie is a 17 year old professional golfer making more than most men on the PGA tour and still she wants to go to college. Now I’m a big proponent of a college degree but most people go to college to earn more money later on in life, climb the corporate ladder. There are some who go to learn something, but I’m sure Michelle could pay a tutor to teach her all she wants to learn.

Yes she’ll get the experience, college experience is fun. But knowing that you’ll never have to use what you’re learning is going to get old very fast. Even she said herself:

“Now that I got into Stanford … it was one of my dreams, and I want to go through with it. I definitely want to go there and really try to graduate.”

Try to Graduate? I guess when you’re going in not thinking you’re going to graduate you may just want to go for a little fun. None-the-less you can’t blame her for trying it out. She’s trying out a lot of things in life, like men’s tours and those aren’t working out so well right now.

But she’s at least giving it her all. Good luck at school Michelle, we suggest going to focus on golf 24X7 but that’s just me. Trust me, college is a blast, but studying gets old really fast.

Michelle Wie can’t stay out of the headlines. She was recently a main story on ESPN.com (sorry story is missing from the link I saved) and she was a feature of the Golf Channel, who reviewed her career thus far.

Well World Golf News couldn’t be left out of the mix and did a sort of amusing piece on Women’s golf pointing to the players who got the most publicity vs those that actually one.

Although I dont’ agree with them that the future looks bleek for the LPGA I did find it interesting to think about the players that I actually heard about in the news and saw on the covers of every magazine vs those that actually won on tour this year.

Ochoa, Webb and Sorenstam had 13 wins total while Wie, Creamer, Pressel, and Gulbis had 0. Gulbis has her own show on the golf channel, Creamer is on the cover of every magazine known in her pink outfits, and Morgan Pressel is just young so why not throw her in the mix too. And then there’s Michelle Wie.

Michelle Wie has been in more coverage this year than Sorenstam has been in her whole career, yet she hasn’t won. But she is young, and that just imagine what will happen if and when she does start winning. She’ll be more recognized than most sporting folk, she probably is getting close to that right now.

Anyway, the article linked to above has some pretty funny things about this mix of golfers, I suggest it as a good read.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, LPGA, Natalie, Gulbis

Lorena Ochoa was recently interviewed by ESPN.com and was asked some interesting quesitons about Michelle Wie and her play in both the Men’s and Women’s tour. It’s kinda funny that she would be answering questions about another player when the interview is about her but Michelle Wie is a hot topic and we can understand why.

First off, Lorena was asked her thought’s on Michelle Wie’s play in men’s events. She had this to say

I respect Michelle Wie very much. I think she is a great player, but sometimes I believe that she is making some mistakes that could hurt her confidence in her game. I think she does not give good results in the men’s events, and I think it is hurting her confidence level because she is not getting good results and she is not winning any tournaments. My advice to her would be to play more women’s tournaments and achieve her goals first in the women’s events

Next Lorena was asked how Michelle would fare if and when she plays a full season on the LPGA? Lorena’s response:

I think that it is obvious that Michelle Wie is ready to play on the LPGA Tour. Every time she plays, she gets good results. She always makes the cut. She has been top three, top five, top 10 many times. So I think it would be good for her and for us if she would join the LPGA for a full season. It would be more exiting and more fun for the tour.

It seems as though Lorena was giving very honest answers. The rest of the interview is interesting and we suggest you read it.

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, Lorena, Ochoa, ESPN

After briefly falling out of the top 10 in the women’s Rolex World Golf rankings last month, Michelle Wie has moved back into the top ten, even after not playing a women’s event.

The Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings are as follows.

1. Annika Sorenstam

2. Lorena Ochoa

3. Karrie Webb

3. Cristie Kerr

4. Juli Inkster

6. Ai Miyazato

7. Paula Creamer

8. Jeong Jang

9. Shiho Ohyama

10. Michelle Wie

technorati tags:Michelle, Wie, World, Golf, Rankings, Rolex, Annika, Sorenstam