It isn't every day that a grade school located on a volcanic rock in the middle of the Pacific can lay claim to two distinct forms of royalty.
In this case, a rising president and a fallen princess.
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| Michelle Wie would be limited to six LPGA events, on sponsor exemptions, without a tour card for 2009. (Getty Images) |
Over the next five days of LPGA Qualifying School finals, Michelle Wie could become to the women's tour what fellow Punahou School product Barack Obama hopes to become to the U.S. and its economy.
That is, its future salvation and immediate remedy all rolled into one lanky frame.
After a couple of years of relative indifference toward the opposite camp, it's hard to gauge which needs the other more desperately -- Wie or the LPGA. Not that anybody at the tour should openly root for players this week at Q-school, but as one employee put it, "many fingers are crossed." The Wie camp is likewise crossing all its digits and both thumbs, too.
"Michelle definitely needs the LPGA," said David Leadbetter, Wie's renowned swing coach. "She needs to get into tournaments, she needs momentum to get her game going, she needs a place to play.
"On the other hand, there is no doubt it would be great for the LPGA."
For more than just superficial reasons.
For the first three years of her pro career, Wie mostly gave the LPGA the one-finger salute, refusing to consider membership and electing instead to play on a series of handout sponsor exemptions around the globe. Yet with a pantheon of fresh stars, including a handful of emerging Americans, the LPGA didn't much miss her at the time.
With the exception of Paula Creamer, the Yanks have mostly been underwhelming, and the greatest player of her generation, Annika Sorenstam, retired from competitive LPGA play two weeks ago. As Wie's star has fallen following two years of mostly dismal results, her options and marketability have nosedived like my CBS mutual fund account.
Speaking of mutual needs, that's what this week is all about. Wie badly needs a place to revive her career and the tour has a newly minted opening in its superstar division. As Wie's father B.J. put it a few months ago as doors closed and Q-school became the only logical occupational option, "What other choice do we have?"
We have the LPGA. The LPGA has Wie. How lyrical it could be.
It's a match born of necessity, with a smattering of desperation. Forget Stanford, where the 19-year-old is playing hooky from her sophomore year. Getting certified with a tour card this week means more to Wie's future than a Pac-10 sheepskin and perhaps even more to the women's game itself. Besides, graduates of Honolulu's famed Punahou also include the founders of AOL and Ebay, so perhaps she can both reinvent herself and save the LPGA over five days, two courses and 90 wintery holes at LPGA International.
Both the player and tour can use some polishing. Wie isn't doing any interviews until completing play in the crucial Q-school event, which critics will assert, with some credence, only reinforces opinions that she's a spoiled elitist to whom regular duties and expectations do not apply. Underscoring how crucial the week ranks to her personally and professionally, she wants to concentrate on cementing her future without outside interruption.
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Fair enough. But she needs to both shut up and put up.
It's hard to believe, but when the first Rolex world rankings for women were revealed in early 2006, she was No. 3, behind Sorenstam and Creamer. Two years ago this month, Wie was named by Time as "one of 100 people who shape our world." Forbes estimated her 2007 earnings at $19 million.
All that's left is the money, which is more than the tour can say. The LPGA won't disappear without Wie on board as ballast, but the tour has seemingly crested and begun to slide in an increasingly uncertain economy. There will be three fewer tournaments next season than in 2008. The tour is negotiating crucial new TV deals, and the majority of the LPGA's domestic events have contracts that were intentionally tied to the timeline of expiring broadcast pacts. It seemed like a good idea when the deals were finalized.
Now hawking its open-market wares minus the allure of its greatest player in a dire economy, the LPGA Tour has only five of 24 events to be staged in the U.S. and Canada under contract beyond 2009, according to reports. A resurgent Wie could brighten the marketability picture markedly.
Wie, who has regularly been given sponsor exemptions to men's events because of the firepower she generates at the gate, is the rarest of players -- she actually generates discussion, be it hyperbolic or vitriolic, among fans who aren't avid golfers themselves. Only career crash-test dummy John Daly inspires, if that's the right word, as much passion and opinion among golf fans.
Either way, the LPGA wins. At least people would be talking about women's golf.
"Playing well or playing badly, Michelle is always a focus of attention," said Leadbetter, whose wife Kelly played on the LPGA Tour for years. "She's always a story.
"To have her in the mix can only help the LPGA tour. She is charismatic, she has that wow factor, she plays a different style. She is definitely what the LPGA needs to keep the tour in front of the public eye."
Leadbetter won't make any brash predictions, but he expects Wie to earn her card this week. If she doesn't, she'll be limited to the maximum six LPGA sponsor exemptions next season, and 2009 would amount to another lost season for perhaps the greatest phenom in modern golf annals. After all, Wie was contending at major championships while still in high school.
In 2006, she held at least a share of the lead on the back nine at three majors, but injuries turned '07 into a nightmarish series of events, compounded by shortsighted decisions to continue playing before she had recovered physically. She lost her swing, her confidence, and worst of all, whatever reputation she once enjoyed.
As her critics have noted, Wie's last tournament title was claimed at age 13, in nearby Palm Coast, Fla., where she won the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links. Since then, teens winning on the LPGA has become downright de rigueur. This fall, two teens claimed major championship and a 20-year-old won a third, the Women's British Open.
Wie turns 20 next October -- so in LPGA circles, Wie is wee no longer.
"She's not the young teenage phenom anymore," Leadbetter said Tuesday after watching Wie's practice round. "There are a lot of young players out there now. You would not classify her as the young rookie anymore, right? She's in the mainstream.
"But she has that huge potential. I am waiting to see the time when she can get out there and perform on a regular basis, because she is a sight to behold when she is in full flow."
The trickle could soon become a river, he believes. The injuries are in the past and Wie showed signs of snapping out of her two-year funk during LPGA play last summer. She was within a shot of the lead heading into the final round when she was disqualified over a scorecard snafu five months ago.
If there's one thing American sports fans love more than ripping a pampered, overrated athlete gone bust, it's a good comeback story. Sometimes, like with the potential marriage of Wie and the LPGA, they go hand in hand.
"I think the bottom line is everybody knows what she's capable of," Leadbetter said. "What do they say, class is forever and form is temporary? Obviously the last 1½ years have been a struggle to say the least.
"But as I have said to her, if she starts playing some good golf, people will forget that other stuff."
