Michelle Wie is the LPGA’s best hope to save women’s professional golf. Her six-year career has been one big roller coaster, with underwhelming performances, overbearing parents, and a teenage existence that played out in the public eye. It’s no wonder she struggled to earn her tour card, or that she decided to head for Stanford in September 2007.
Now 20, Wie is finally showing glimpses of her greatness. She performed well at the Solheim Cup last August, won her first professional event in November, and at the turn last Sunday, she found herself in second place at the Kia Classic, four shots behind eventual winner Hee Kyung Seo.
A wayward shot on the 11th hole left her ball in shallow water, but still playable.
Here’s what happened next: Wie, with one foot submerged and the other in the rough, played an explosion shot out of the water, advanced the ball a few inches in front of her into the rough, and then, as she contemplated what had just happened … grounded her club in the hazard (you can see the video here). Wie later claimed that she grounded the club to keep her balance.
And as the Honolulu Star-Bulletin noted, “The club-grounding is a violation, unless [Wie] was trying ‘to prevent falling,’ the rule states. … But three tournament officials gave the penalty without asking Wie about her intent — she didn’t look to be desperate in reruns of the shot — and not believing her, they refused to budge from their ruling.”
So Wie was slapped with a two-stroke penalty. And by the time her round was over, she had dropped from second to a tie for sixth, which cost her roughly $90,000.
It’s not the first time she has sidetracked by rules violations. In her first professional tournament at the 2005 LPGA Samsung World Championship she was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard after a fourth-place finish. She suffered the same fate at the 2008 State Farm Classic, where she was in second place heading to the weekend.
Silver lining: It’s not like Wie needs the money — she just signed an endorsement deal with McDonald’s. That said, it would be nice to see her play an entire tournament without incident. Yes, golf is filled with arcane rules, but if everybody else in the field can navigate their way through 72 holes then so can Wie.
