Wie’s woes continue…

Michelle Wie: Even her looks can’t bail her out

Michelle Wie has had a difficult past year, all of which she has brought upon herself. First she goes from being a darn good female golfer to the worst mail golfer ever. Next is the rule bending. Credibility is important in golf, or at least it used to be. If you remember the story of Bobby Jones (who by the way was more of a golf prodigy than Wie), Jones exemplified the principles of sportsmanship and fair play. From Wikipedia:

In the beginning of his amateur career, Jones was in the final playoff of the U.S. Open. During the match, his ball ended up in the rough just off the fairway, and as he was setting up to play his shot his iron caused a slight movement of the ball. He immediately got angry with himself, turned to the marshals, and called a penalty on himself. The marshals discussed among themselves and questioned some of the gallery if anyone had seen Jones’ ball move. Their decision was that neither they nor anyone else had witnessed any incident, so the decision was left to Jones. Bobby Jones called the two-stroke penalty on himself, not knowing that he would lose the tournament by one stroke. When he was praised for his gesture, Jones replied, “You may as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.”

Michelle Wie from GirlCamelToe.com

Compare this to Wie. In the midst of a terrible round at Ginn Tribute on Thursday, Wie was 14-over through 16 holes and risked violating the obscure “Rule 88″ which states that a non-member who shoots 88 is forced to withdraw and subsequently banned from LPGA co-sponsored events for the remainder of the calendar season. ” So Wie apparently faked a wrist injury. While Wie denies this, blogger Geoff Shackleford states a pretty good case here and here. There is every appearance that she either faked the injury or used it to get around Rule 88 and then lied about it afterward.

Michelle Wie from GirlCamelToe.com

There was also the incident at hole 15 that challenges Wie’s character. This one involves Rule 8-1. From ESPN.com:

Rule 8-1 forbids a player from soliciting advice. “During a stipulated round,” the rule states, “a player must not … ask for advice from anyone other than his partner or either of their caddies.” The penalty is 2 strokes. Then Wie’s father, B.J., said something to her caddie. More than one reporter present heard him say, “What about the tee?” Within seconds, Michelle decided to go back to the tee to hit again. She told her playing partners to putt out as she walked back to the beginning of the hole.

Michelle’s defense is that she did not ask for the advice, it was simply given to her. This excuse is almost Geragosish and it’s doubtful that the rule makers intended for fathers to be exempted from a rule intended to protect players from being penalized from solicited suggestions coming from unknown parties in the gallery.

Michelle Wie is definitely a prodigy. Who would have thought that at such a young age she could be so much like Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Milli Vanilli,….

Update: Just two days after pulling out of the Ginn Tribute because of her injury, Wie was at Bulle Rock hitting balls. Hmmmmm.

tags: michelle wie

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 5:22 pm by Insider and is filed under Big Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.