You provincial US mainlanders still don't get it!
There is no way that Michelle Wie could have learned enough about the game of golf as a rank amateur at age 13-14 to hit the type of shots she hit without expert counsel and advice. At one point she was quoted as saying, "when I started playing the game, I didn't know any more than a rank beginner. If I knew then how how difficult the game was actually going to be, Im not sure I would have started playing in the first place."
I've also come across information that contrary to our "legendary" understanding, Wie did NOT travel to the mainland US at the age of 8 as previously reported, but instead travelled there much later when she was 9 and a half!
SO much for the romantic, emotionally-sentimental story that she spent time learning at an early age under the combined tutelage of Rick Smith and Butch Harmon!!!
Instead, I've found that the grandson of HH Barker actually discovered the baby Wie floating in a basket down a saltwater inlet wrapped in swaddling clothing. Barker, somewhat of a OCD-ridden, "RainMan"-imitating golf-playing afficianado, devoted the next three years of his life teaching Wie the proper swing plane and mental attitude necessary to compete at the highest levels of the female game.
Despite his well-intentioned instruction, about seven days later a dashing ghost of Charles Blair Macdonald, followed closely by the spectre of his subservient son-in-law HJ Whigham, told the young Michelle to discard all of that GardenCity nouveau riche nonsense and get back to basics.
THey had her create a swing that was based on exact imitations...templates if you will...of 18 swing components and keys of the 18 greatest players ever to set foot on a golf course, and they did it all in 3 and a half days...well...actually...a total of about 19 hours spread over the next two and a half years, excluding bathroom runs, 36 holes of play at Mauna Kea, and some mindless chatter about the differences between Pacific and Atlantic coastal winds.
So, was born a champion...a future champion. err...someday...perhaps.
In any case. you now know the true and exact background story.