Michelle Wie hit and amazing drive and approach shot to make the green on this 596 yard whole in two shots.

Michelle Wie is number 4 on the top 20 richest celebrities under 25. The top 4 on the list are athletes with the obvious first going to Lebron James.

Michelle Wie, who struggled this year in golf tournaments still brought in $19 million. Most of that sponsor money from people banking on her expected golf talent.

The next tournament that she could be involved in the Sony Open, might not even happen for her even though Sony is one of her sponsors. Tadd Fujikawa has already been invited and Michelle Wie will probably be next on the list.

Greg Nared who was hired last year by the William Morris Agency whom manages Wie, said he is resigning his position as VP of Golf and also Michelle Wie’s agent.� So what does this mean for Wie, why did he resign?

We’re not really sure and it doesn’t look like the agency is talking very much about the issue but we did find this quote from and AP article

“While we are sorry that Greg will no longer be handling the road management of Michelle, we wish to thank him for his work and wish him the best going forward,” Jesse Derris, a spokesman for the Wie family, said in a statement. “The core group of agents handling Michelle’s business relationships remains intact, as it has from day one of her professional career.”

I guess we’ll have to wait and see if this means Michelle Wie will get an agent that will focus on building both her game and her pocket book.

Michelle Wie finished the 20 person tournament at 18-over-par. With her final round under par she just squeeked out of last place finishing 19th and earning $13,125. Michelle ended 37 strokes behind the winner Lorena Ochoa.

Michelle Wie’s day was far from her previous 3 days of 7-over, 7-over and 5-over. With only 6 holes left she was at 3-under and on her way to playing as well as the leader on the final day (Lorena was 6 under for the day.) But she then faltered with a bogey and double bogey. A birdie in between was her only saving grace to bring her back to under par.

But overall she sits in last place in a field most thought she shouldn’t even be considered for a sponsor exemption in. 19 over after 3 days. She had again today more bogeys and even a triple bogey!

The leader, Lorena Ochoa, sits at 12 under through 3 days of play.

I think a sponsors exemption may have backfired for her sponsors. True she hasn’t played for a while but it might have been best to keep it that way until she get into some larger fields with less hype and be one of the crowd over par rather than a sore thumb on the tournament big board.

The leader Lorena Ochoa is still on the course and sitting at 5 under par for the day 9 under overall for the tournament. Closest to Michelle in the back of the pack is Bettina Hauert who sits at 13 under par for the two days.

Michelle will be able to continue trying to better her scores through the weekend as there is no cut in the 20 person tourney.

Michelle started the day with two pars and a birdie to be 1 under through 3 holes. That quickly turned south as she went through several bogeys and double bogeys. Wie finished the day at 7 over par and in dead last place.

This poor performance in the first round won’t help the fact that her even being in the tournament has a black mark on it. She recieved a special exemption to the Samsung which is a tournament for the top money winners on the tour. She obviously wasn’t one of them, and she ended up bumping Natalie Gulbis from the tournament for the spot.

The good news is that there isn’t a cut in the tournament so she’ll have the whole weekend to prove that she belongs in this elite field. However, she does have a heap of work ahead of her to try and erase this first day.

Out of the 20 person field Michelle Wie is the only one that got in on a sponsors exemption and ended up bumping Natalie Gulbis from the tournament (haven’t found any Gulbis quotes yet.)

Michelle was recently quoted in the Honolulu Advertiser saying this about the upcoming tournament, “I’m a lot better, I feel like I’m getting stronger, and I feel healthy as a person too. Going to college and having fun.”

We’ll see if she shows that improvement both mentally and physically tomorrow.

This is really the first tournament that we think Michelle Wie will be in full force since she had early year injuries. She’s taken some time to fully recover we hope and we will be looking forward to seeing her in action.

Play starts next Thursday, the 11th and will continue through Sunday.

The only catch is, that her parents were right along with her driving the cart. They’ve also rented a house close to campus we hear. While Michelle Wie has to stay on campus in housing we’re not sure how much she stays there.

It’s interesting to see that even though she’s off at school trying to be a “normal” teenage college goer, her parents are right there with her. Each to their own. We just hope that she gets her golf game back to where we know (or believe) Michelle Wie can be.