Swing coach David Leadbetter stopped by the gym to take some reps with his sports trainer early Monday morning and got an even better grip on where his most famous client rates in the sports pecking order.
The trainer, who sounds like he's straight out of a Hans 'n' Franz skit, was trading pleasantries with Leadbetter as they were slinging iron around.
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| With Wie's victory, coach David Leadbetter says, 'Hopefully now the floodgates will open.' (AP) |
Leadbetter said the guy perked up like he'd just mainlined a thousand-ounce energy drink.
"Michelle Wie?" the guy said, "I've heard of her."
This effectively proves what we all have long assumed, and why her victory Sunday in Mexico might have been as important as any on the LPGA in years. In other words, at this point, who's left who doesn't know Wie? Maybe from here onward, the recognition will be for all the right reasons.
The wait is over, the weight of the world is off her shoulders -- and it couldn't have come at a better time for Wie, the LPGA or the declining state of women's golf in America.
"It's been a long time coming, and everybody has been waiting, and everybody, I'm sure, crossing their fingers," Leadbetter said.
After she tapped in for a birdie and a two-shot victory, her first at any level since mid-2003, tour buddies Morgan Pressel and Brittany Lincicome doused her with a beer bath, the suds coming courtesy of one the event sponsors.
"I smelled like Corona for a very long time," Wie told CBSSports.com on Monday after arriving back in the States, "but I didn't consume any."
What, huh? Yep, it's true. Even after spending what feels like a eternity in the public eye, Wie is still only 20 years old. Too young to pound down anything but birdie putts, but old enough to add some carbonation and a heady buzz where it is sorely needed.
She knocked a sand shot from 40 yards to within inches on the final hole Sunday to not only clinch the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, at last closing the deal after so many late misfires, but improve the flagging fortunes of the reeling tour and its fan base in the States.
Wie had a hard time getting her head around the bigger picture, for good reason. This win took forever to happen, and she was still celebrating the personal implications.
"Hopefully it means a lot, but it definitely means a lot for me personally," she said. "This was long overdue for me. I feel like I worked so, so hard to get to this point. Moving forward, there's a lot of improvement that needs to be done."
Not really. At this point, she's already an elite player, having finished in the top 10 eight times in her 18 rookie starts on the LPGA. Everybody, outside of perhaps a few myopic peers on tour who stand to lose more tournaments at Wie's hands, is hoping it's a watershed moment.
"She has been in position to win a number of times and people said, 'Ah, she never learned how to win and that is why she sorts of chokes it,'" Leadbetter said. "When it is all said and done, winning is a product of what you do and also what other players do. Hopefully now the floodgates will open."
For the women's game, a niche sport within a niche sport, the river had become a trickle of late, damned by a poor economy and myopic leadership. Wie at her best is exactly the panacea the LPGA needs. And we do mean the cure for everything.
The LPGA is having trouble signing domestic sponsors, yet Wie is internationally known, a marketable commodity. Americans had gone six months without winning an LPGA event, and Wie attracts fans like Phil Mickelson. If she can win a couple of times every year and pick off a few majors -- Wie had finished third or better in all four Grand Slam events by the time she was 16 -- her win in Mexico might be the best thing that's happened to golf since Eldrick T. Woods mumbled hello, world. With Pressel and budding rival Paula Creamer all in their early 20s, the LPGA might be salvageable after all.
"Look, it's not only a shot in the arm for the tour, but for women's golf and for the U.S.," Leadbetter said of the Wie win. "Along with Paula and Morgan, they are the face of American golf right now that the young American girls are going to be looking up to.
"The tour is being dominated by foreign players. I think for ladies' golf in general, it needs stirring up, it needs a shot in the arm. Look at it this way: Regardless of how many good young players you have on tour, if Tiger and Phil decided to retire tomorrow, how popular would the tour be from a sponsorship standpoint. They are the face of U.S. golf.
"Sponsors don't want to sponsor events for Australians or South Americans. It's the same thing on the LPGA -- they don't want to sponsor just for the Koreans or players from China. They want to see the homegrown talent come through. It's really, really, really important for the health of the LPGA tour to have some good, young American players."
Everybody at LPGA headquarters who is being honest with themselves just said, "Amen, brother."
If she can keep the momentum going, Wie is exactly the sort of player tours revolve around. She's telegenic, in her third year at Stanford and plays the game like a guy -- aggressively, not passively. Sunday was another reminder.
"The LPGA has the best product it has ever had and the depth is amazing," Leadbetter said. "But that said, it would be nice to have players the American golfing public can relate to. That's the whole key. As good as a lot of the international players are, it's hard for the local golf population, the golfing public, to relate to them. Michelle, they can relate to her, for good or bad."
Root against her if you must. At least you'd care enough to have an opinion. She can handle the naysayers by now.
Come to think of it, it's been months since Wie was ripped by anybody. Ever since she put her head down, swallowed her pride and went through the meritocracy known as Qualifying School -- the sponsor exemptions had dried up when her results went south after two injury-wracked and controversial seasons -- she has been a model player.
She easily earned her card in December, began her rookie season with a runner-up finish in Hawaii, played on the Solheim Cup team, appeared before the IOC as part of golf's Olympic lobbying contingent, started her third year at Stanford and won her first pro event. Not a bad 11 months.
"Yeah, it is actually amazing, hearing it said like that," she said. "It really puts things in perspective. I think I have matured a lot, am a junior in college now, turned 20 and am getting old."
It was a weird week to remove her final LPGA training wheels, really. Wie sprained her left ankle a few weeks ago and was bunting it around, hesitant to shift her weight onto her left side. Leadbetter, mindful of the damage Wie inflicted to her swing when playing through her wrist maladies four years ago, suggested she take it easy.
She listened. Wie started the fall semester in college, had barely practiced or played, and hadn't entered an LPGA event in five weeks. Wie said she was so distracted by the ankle that it probably helped her from getting caught up in the pressure of the moment.
"Walking a golf course is a long walk," she said. "The people at the LPGA have been working on my ankle a lot, icing it, and maybe it's another reason why I was able to keep calm because all I was focusing on was finishing the round. I was just focusing on my steps and not hurting."
Baby steps, if you will.
Speaking of which, it had been 6½ years since a tiny handful of Florida-based golf scribes wandered up to Palm Coast, Fla., to watch Wie win the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links title in 2003 at age 13, becoming the youngest player ever to win an adult tournament staged by the U.S. Golf Association.
Nobody there thought it would take this long for a reprise. Not Wie, not us, not her parents, coaches or fans. She was certain to be a savior in spikes. With the LPGA starving for attention as a new commissioner takes the helm this week, the timing of her Mexican incursion was seemingly terrific.
"Yeah, it does seem like so long ago," Wie said of her Publinks win. "I just feel like I have been through so much since that time and that I have changed so much as a person since then.
"It's crazy that it's been this long. But at the same time, it just feels that much better."
