Archive for March, 2007

Michelle Wie, who will miss the first LPGA major of the year is known to have a very strong work ethic. Driven by herself and her parents, she’s constantly working to better her golf game.

We found this article interesting along with the quote from fellow LPGA golf star Annika Sorenstam. It’s about the upcomming tourney that Annika is no doubt gunning for the win and is the favorite since she is the world’s number one.

But the article quoted Annika talking about Michelle Wie and when she saw Michelle walking to work on her golf game with David Leadbetter in Florida. The funny thing was, it was the day before Christmas and she was working on her game.

Now I’m not sure why this was so amazing, most of America works the day before Christmas, and in reality, this is Michelle Wie’s job. But it was interesting none-the-less that Annika would be commenting on Michelle Wie.

Annika Sorenstam was in Florida washing her car when she noticed a familiar face walking along the street, golf clubs on her shoulder.

It was Michelle Wie, on her way to work on her game with coach David Leadbetter. Nothing particularly strange about that, of course, except that this was December 24.

“Which is weirder, me washing my car on Christmas Eve or her practising on Christmas Eve?” Sorenstam asked herself.

Michelle Wie, who has mentioned she wants to play on the US Men’s Ryder Cup team, which means top 25 rankings on the PGA tour, is slipping in the Women’s World Golf Rankings.

Without playing tournaments this is obviously what’s going to happen, but it’s always a bummer to see. The rankings currently put Michelle Wie’s golf game at 18th in the world, still respectable since she has hardly played at all over the ranking time period.

Michelle sits on the top 20 having only golfed in 13 events while the rest of the women have golf in 40 or more.

The top 3 remain, Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, and Karrie Webb.

Michelle Wie won’t be playing in the first LPGA major of the year. The Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first LPGA major of 2007 will start first round action next week Thursday, March 29th, 2007.

Last month Michelle hurt her wrist when during a fall and has been out from training for the time since. This past week she started chipping and putting but it now looks like Michelle Wie will be unable to play next week. This is the first LPGA major she’s missed in 2 years.

The announcment was made today by a PR firm that the Wie’s now use for press releases. Let’s hope she gets better soon and is able to play some in April cause she’s been out of tournaments since the PGA tours Sony Open where she missed the cut by 14 strokes.

Some people have inquired as to how Michelle Wie is playing in yet another LPGA major without really going through the qualifying standards that other women have to go through to get into the LPGA majors.

Well, as if it were some secret invitation, it’s of course, a sponsors exemption. Michelle Wie, who may not golf in the first major of the year was given a sponsors exemption, which we think was rightfully given.

Michelle Wie not only carries a lot with her name and people follow her to see what she might do (obviously bringing the cash with her) she also was within inches of joining the others in last years playoff to decide the champion.

She will join 6 other ametures who also recieved sponsors exemptions to the tournament.

The first LPGA major of the year, the Kraft Nabisco Championship is scheduled to start March 29, 2007. She’s been there in the past, and almost made a last round playoff for the title missing her 10 foot birdie attempt to send her into that several ladie playoff.

The latest and greatest news from the William Morris agency, the sports agency that handles all of Michelle Wie’s millions, has stated this week that miss Wie is chipping and putting after injuring her wrist in early February.

Michelle Wie has been unable to play due to this sudden injury putting her at a disadvantage going into the championship, which is the first LPGA major. She last played at the Sony Open, where she quickly fell behind and didn’t make the cut in the PGA tour event held in Honolulu Hawaii.

We’re hoping that she’s able to tough it out and make a great drive for the title to give us something spectacular to cover. Maybe a little rest is just what she needed.

Michelle Wie is one of the most talked about athletes in golf today, men and women. Some of the comments are good and some of the comments bad but no matter what way you slice it, there’s a lot of comments on Michelle Wie.

With that we’re going to open a new section called “Talk Michelle Wie” where we’ll scrub the web for quotes from other golfers, sports commentators, athletes, and anyone else who wants to comment on Michelle Wie.

Since there has been recent talk about Michelle Wie’s decision to turn pro and compete on the both the LPGA and PGA tour we thought it would be good to dig up some old quotes about Michelle Wie and her decision from some other golfers. Namely, the golfer now commentator, Dottie Pepper.

We found these from a USA Today article. Dottie Pepper said,

“Wie should hold on to her childhood and resist the urge to turn professional so soon.”

“I think if it was my kid, I would say, no way, be a kid a little longer. You can’t put a price on childhood and you can’t turn back the clock.”

That was back in 2005, do you think Dottie Pepper was right?

We recently reported about Michelle Wie injuring her wrist and being out 4-6 weeks. That is, and was, a time period that takes Michelle up to the week prior to the first LPGA tour major of the year, The Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Some of you may recall last year when Michelle Wie was one stroke off the lead before failing to make birdie on the 18h hole that would have sent her into a playoff.

She didn’t finish off last year strong and started this year on a low note failing to make the cut at the Sony Open in Hawaii.

We’re hoping to find out soon whether or Miss Wie will be able to play on her sponsors exemption in this first LPGA major of the year.

We found more notable quotables from just before Michelle Wie decided to go pro from the USA Today article. But unlike last time these are more in favor of Michelle Wie’s decision to turn pro.

They’re from television analyst Johnny Miller who said these interesting tid-bits about Michelle Wie.

“She’s a one-in-a-hundred-million golfer, so her path can’t be judged by other people’s paths. She’s in a position I don’t think anyone has been in, including Tiger or Nicklaus. She’s just better at that age than anybody’s ever been before.”

“There’s a certain sense out there that it would be good if she struck while the iron was hot in terms of what her commercial appeal is and the value of the contract she could sign.”

And contract she did sign, with Nike, and now numerous other sponsorship deals that have landed Michelle Wie more than $20 million in one year!

Michelle Wie is just 17 years young and trying to make cuts in the ever increasingly competitive PGA tour. Although making the cut, and even more so finishing consistently in the top ten is high on her list, she’s still looking forward to graduating from high school.

Michelle Wie attends the prestigious Punahou High School on the island of Oahu, part of the Hawaiian Islands. She’s just like every other person at the school except she plays on the PGA tour and makes more money in a year than most of the students at the school will make in a lifetime.

But she’s still excited about graduating. It’s a big step in any teenagers life and now Michelle Wie won’t be just finishing school to jump right into the professional sports world. Even though she turned pro a little over a year ago which means she lost all eligibility to play in college sports, Michelle Wie will still be attending college at Standford University, this fall.

We can’t believe we missed this bit of news about Michelle Wie. Sorry we didn’t bring it to you sooner!

Michelle Wie was recently running and fell causing her to now wear a cast for 4-6 weeks. That time period in a cast usually means just a fracture and not a break through, but for anyone who’s had a broken arm of any sort knows the atrophy of the muscles.

Spokespeople for Michelle Wie have noted that she will only be out for 6 weeks. However, as mentioned, having a broken arm usually means that you aren’t able to work out all the muscles in that arm. That means it’ll take a little more time for Michelle Wie to be back to 100%.

The injury happend during the first week of February which would put her recovery somewhere around this week or next. We are uncertain if she will be playing in the Kraft Nabisco Championship which is the first LPGA mjor of the year and happens on March 29th, 2007.

We’ll keep you better posted on her progress.