Archive for January, 2007

Michelle Wie didn’t have much luck on her side this time around at the Sony Open. She was playing on her home course of Waialae Country Club, in front of her home crowd. Where she would most likely get the most support this year if she continued to miss the cut in men’s tournaments.

All that didn’t add up to a stellar two days. Instead, she struggled the first day, and struggled the second day. Scoring a 78 and a 76 respectively to end the two days at 14-over and in third to last place among the men who finished the two days.

She had many shots that went a stray but her real struggle was on the greens where numerous times she just didn’t’ get the leaners she needed. She lipped out several times where she needed to make par and instead made bogey, hurting her chances to come closer to making the cut.

Of the day and of what people are saying about her playing in mens tournaments Michelle Wie said;

“People have opinions. Let them have opinions. But that’s not going to change what I want to do, because they don’t know what I want and, you know, they don’t know what I feel.”

She is persistent and appears to want to continue to play in PGA events so long as she gets her sponsors exemptions.

Michelle Wie began the day with a Par on the first hole. It was all down hill from there.

She finished the front nine with 4 bogies and 2 double bogies placing her at 8-over par with 9 holes still to play. The back nine started as the front nine finished. With a bogey.

She then showed some light scoring a par and birdie on the next two holes but was quickly brought back down to earth on the very next hole where she got a bogey 5. She finished the remainder of the back nine at Waialae Country Club with pars and one birdie leaving her back 9 even.

Although she was unable to recover from the disasterous front nine, she should work off this momentum and take it into tomorrow where she’ll try and salvage whats left of the tournament. It doesn’t look like she’ll be making the cut this year as she sits in second to last place for those who started the day, 5 shots in front of Abe Mariano who ended the day with a 13-over par.

Good luck tomorrow Michelle. We’ll be rooting for a turnaround.

Michelle Wie came into the Sony Open with high expectations. Playing at her home course of Waialae Country Club, low winds, and minimal rain expected throughout the weekend.

However, after only 9 holes of play she sits with 4 bogies and 2 double bogies putting her already at 8 over par. If she keeps this up, she’ll need a miracle round on the second day to make her first PGA tour cut.

Stranger things have happened.

Michelle Wie is set to start in her 4th Sony Open in Honolulu, Hawaii at the Waialae Country Club. Her tee time for the event is scheduled for 8:30 am HST which is 5 hours behind Eastern Standard Time, making it 1:30 on the East Coast of the United States.

We recently looked at whether the Sony Open is a must win for Michelle Wie and what both a win and a loss for Wie would mean.

You better believe, sink or swim, Michelle Wie will grace many of the News Stations top stories from around the globe. Many people are looking to see if she’ll improve over last years near make at the Sony Open or if she’ll even improve over her last few stops from 2006 on the Men’s tours.

In a recent article over at ESPN.com Ron Sirak talks about the 2007 Sony Open and Michelle Wie’s “final exam”.

He brings up some good points about her previous experiences playing on the PGA tour and in other men’s events and discusses the path that the Wie’s have chosen. Was it the right one? Is it the media that’s slowing pulling Michelle Wie down?

Well, I’m not so sure the media is doing anything to pull Michelle Wie down as is evident by the spattering of commenter’s who seem to take certain articles written on the Michelle Wie FAN blog personal. There is still a die hard following that want to see her succeed as soon as possible.

But Sirak does bring up the point that what if the teen golf sensation was to pull out of men’s tournaments for a few years. Could she even win over the media then? At first, definitely not. I agree with the article that if she pulls out of men’s tournaments, as most are suggesting Michelle Wie do, she’ll be torn down in the media as choosing the wrong path and quiting on her goals.

That kind of media wind storm could be the absolute wrong thing for her game right now. Yes we’d like to think of her as ultra strong and able to pull through the comments that would ensue but we must be realistic too. She has a chance to crash and burn. But that’s what comebacks are for.

Now if Michelle makes the cut at this years 2007 Sony Open, it may put all those naysayers to rest and she can go on her path of playing men’s and women’s tournaments. The media will build her up, then tear her down and all will be right with the world.

To answer the title of this post, “Is the Sony Open a Must Win for Michelle Wie?” I think yes, in the short term. She needs to enter the 2007 season on a high note so that she doesn’t go into every single tournament answering a hundred and one questions about why other players think she shouldn’t be in the men’s tournaments, even when she’s playing an LPGA event.

But if she doesn’t, she can always go off to standford for a while and use that to get out of four years of tournaments without the press taking her down.

We’ll all know the outcome by Friday night. Good luck Michelle.

Stuart Appleby has recently spoken up about Michelle Wie and her playing in the Men’s tournaments. This coming before Michelle Wie makes her first appearance on the men’s PGA tour in 2007.

Appleby said in a recent interview from Kapalua, Maui:

“She should just let it go for now and come back when she has a more accomplished game,” Appleby said Tuesday at the Mercedes-Benz Championship in Hawaii. “She’s just not ready for it. She’s certainly not proving anything except that she can’t play with the men at her level right now.”

The world will get to see if she’s ready for the men when she takes them on at the Sony Open played at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu Hawaii. Even if she does make the cut some peopel may question whether or not it was a true test of Wie vs the Men due to the fact that Waialae is Michelle Wie’s home course which she plays on constantly.

If ever there was a time for Michelle Wie to make the cut in a Men’s PGA tour event, the Sony Open 2007 is the place to do it. Appleby, Singh, and others will be there competing for the same prize money and trying not to be showed up by the 17 year old Wie.

Michelle Wie is hoping to make her first PGA cut in the upcoming week at the 2007 Sony Open in Honolulu Hawaii at the Waialae Country Club.

Last year didn’t go so well as Michelle Wie failed to make the cut in her season opener in both golf and men’s tours of 2006. Since then Michelle Wie has made Waialae Country Club her home course as she moved from Olomana on the east side of Oahu to the south shore. This should give Michelle a slight advantage over the rest of the field even though the rest of the field is male.

Waialae Country Club play several holes right on the water. The course isn’t very hilly and shouldn’t play that long at only 7125 yards from the championship tees. We’ll be sure to have continuing coverage of Michelle Wie and her preparation for the Open as the week continues.