Forget the draw that she represents, the need for her to play, how well she would stand if she was a pro & collecting money, or any of the these self-convincing rationales; the bottom line is that it is the single most important championship in women's golf and they should remember the importance of that.
It is hard enough to justify the giving of a special exemption into the U.S. Open, after all, it is only a few short years ago when Arnold Palmer was still playing well enough to contend on the men's tour when they made him qualify. In fact, that is one of the reason's that I rooted so hard for Arnie in my youth; if he could believe that the game was bigger than him, than who was I to disagree.
For me that is the ultimate problem with giving the exemption to Wie. Why is it such a loss if she FAILS to qualify? Doesn't this just elevate the importance of the championship to the level it deserves to be at.
One of the things that separates golf from all other sport or athletic endeavors is how its history is lived every day. Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Pele, Roger Bannister, Dick Weber, Jesse Owens, and so many other icons of their sports who reached mythical status have now become little more than answers to trivia questions, rolled out for inspection only when some modern players performance eclipses a record that has been relegated to a somewhat meaningless status. Not so in golf.
Bobby Jones is revered now as much, and if not more, than when he walked the fairways to cheers. So too Lord Byron, Sam Snead, Walter Hagen, and even further back to the Morrises both older & younger. In no other sport has been there so much written about the accomplishments of the past greats as there has been in golf, and continues to be so. Why else are so many of the discussions on this website the heated jousts that both entertain and provoke?
The difference between the history of golf and any other sport is shown by the Babe, Didrickson not Ruth. For all of her accomplishments in Track & Field, tennis and other sports, she is most remembered for her accomplishments on the golf course. Why is that? Her feats in the others were just as legendary. The answer though lies in the nature of our legends and why they remain so. The legends of golf are truly historic and conrinued from generation to generation.
That is why I believe it was so wrong for the USGA to give her this special exemption even though it can be so well-justified on a variety of levels.
By doing this the USGA has lowered the heights from which we look up at our legends. They have declared the history & traditions of the game to be a little less important. At a time when we need honor and appreciation for tradition in our lives, attacking that in even a small way is a slippery slope whose borders never should have been approached no less started down.