Wie makes cut in Asian men's event

[Garland Bayley]

What is it that appeals about media driven stars to all of you?  ...

Let me guess your opinion. Tiger is not a media driven star, because he has won a lot. But Michelle is a media driven star, because she has won a little.

Please note that Tiger is 30, Michelle is 16.

However, Michelle has accomplished more in PGA events at ages 14, 15, and 16 than Tiger did. So is she a media driven star or a talent driven star?

[George Pazin]

Garland, you picked the wrong example. BillV is even less a fan of Tiger's than Michelle's. He doesn't support our worship of these two prodigious talents.

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

Go Wiesy. I still don't think she'll have any impact on the men's tour, but I'd like to see her do well nonetheless.

[Jim Nugent]

What is it that appeals about media driven stars to all of you?  I don't get it, never will I suppose, but I'm curious no fascinated by teh drive it instills in some of you.  Interestingly, most of whom I haven't met given that I've met 200-300 of youse guys.  

Seems like we've gone around this barn a few dozen times, but I'll give it another ride.  Wie is not just a media driven star.  She has done what no woman has ever done, in any sport as far as I know: go elbow to elbow with the top men and hold her own.

This is a first.  A woman who can compete with the best men on the planet.  Plus she is a child.  Is she not going to get better?  Seems damn unlikely.  She keeps getting better every year.  So what is the limit?  I don't know, but it could be incredibly exciting.  

Already made history.  Greatest prodigy the game has seen, boy or girl.  Throwing cherished gender assumptions out the window, before she is even 15.  

And you call that a media-driven star?  That is the part I don't get.  

[peter_p]

The third round was cancelled because bad weather made the course unplayable, and the round will not be made up. It is now a 54 hole tournament.

[peter_p]

She should be teeing off as I post this, finishing  about 11 PDT.

[Brent Hutto]

Pete,

Do you know of a web address for live scoring from that tournament?

[Phil_the_Author]

Shivas, in answer to your question, at 16, Mozart astounded and dominated the field at the Milan Open, playing with a Mitridate driver designed by the great Italian clubmaker Lucio Silla himself!

His greatest triumph would occur just a few years later when he would upset the current Salzburg City champion, the unexciting Antonio Saliere, who was appropriately nicknamed "Mr. Par," 10 & 8 in the championship match of the Emperor Joseph Open.

This comment is inspired by and for our own Mr. Rowlinson, who enjoys his golf almost as much as his Mozart!  

[Joe Perches]

Do you know of a web address for live scoring from that tournament?

http://eng.koreapga.com/Tour/hot_04_04.asp?OPEN_YEAR=2006&TOUR_DIV=11&TOMT_CLSS=0005&TOMT_TIME=00&ref_sec=10&live_sec=30

[paul cowley]

If she was indeed listed as WI SUNG MI, she finished 3 under and 35th.

[Tom_Doak]

I'll fan the flames a little bit here.

I happened to read Mark Frost's book on Bobby Jones a month ago; another excellent book to follow up his book on Ouimet.  Anyway, I thought the best part of the book was his chronicle about Jones' life from when he broke onto the national scene at Merion, when he was 14, until he broke through at Inwood seven years later.

They said the same things about Jones in 1919 and 1920 that some people are saying about Michelle Wie right now.  Tom Watson had similar "problems" in his early years on Tour until he broke through, and then he just mowed everyone down for several years.  My guess is that it will be the same for Michelle Wie; when she finally does break through, everything will seem easy afterwards.

Bill V:  Jones was a "media-driven star", too.

[Craig Sweet]

Redanman...interesting take.

"I guess for me the game is just not as much about the top players as much as it is for some.  It's about how individuals play the game at all levels, what it means to them, what they get out of it, what it does to their lives and probably the most about the playing fields."


It does seem to me that many in the media are more focused on "Michelle Wie Media Star" and the steps that "Team Wie" have alledgedly taken to promote "Michelle Wie Media Star" than they are on "Michelle Wie 16 Year Old" shotmaker.

However, many that post here, myself included, look at "Michelle Wie, 16 Year Old Shotmaker" and wonder outloud HOW MANY 16 years, male of female, are doing what she is doing ON THE GOLF COURSE? In EVERY tournament she plays she is coming up against older, more experieanced pros. Sometimes they are men. Against older more experienced women she more than holds her own is currently ranked 2nd.  She has finished no lower than 3rd in LPGA events this year.  

Focus on the golf and you have someone with enormous talent that we should all enjoy while she is around.

[Craig Sweet]

Redanman...by the way...I still contend that if Michelle Wie were a 16 year old boy playing on the PGA Tour and having similar results, we would all be wetting ourselves, and proclaiming him set to shatter all of Tigers records.

[rgkeller]

>>However, Michelle has accomplished more in PGA events at ages 14, 15, and 16 than Tiger did.<<

Only to a Michelle Wie fan would missing more cuts translate into "accomplished more."

[Brent Hutto]

It's just fascinating with the media on board and a "team" behind her that she has been given as many opportunities as she has.  

I'm a cynic about the "money talks" aspects of it.

She's very talented and has been very fortunate. Whenever an individual enjoys a great deal of success and attention some people experience an irresistable urge to take him or her down a notch with whatever petty cavils they can come up with. This is even more true when it's a woman succeeding in a traditionally male-dominated arena.

So don't worry, Bill. You're just indulging in perfectly normal human reaction, albeit a very unattractive one. Personally, I'd rather watch the media put Michelle Wie on a pedestal than see them manufacture yet another Tom Cruise or Michael Jackson "outrage". Wouldn't you?

[Glenn Spencer]

Tiger didn't make a cut until 95 at 18. I will take Michelle before that, but she never won a Girls' Junior. None of this matters, she is talented and can impress everyone who sees her play golf. The last I checked, that is her claim to fame.

[Jim Nugent]

>>However, Michelle has accomplished more in PGA events at ages 14, 15, and 16 than Tiger did.<<

Only to a Michelle Wie fan would missing more cuts translate into "accomplished more."

She has had lower scores, made more birdies, played under par, shot in the 60's, and finished vastly higher than Woods did.  

In what way does that not translate into accomplishing more?  

[Brent Hutto]

Unatttractive to whom by not enjoying repetition?  None here would claim to enjoy repetition on the playing field, yet several want to know every literal move this young woman makes.  Over and over and over.  There is a lot more interesting in golf than Michelle Wie.

Well, certainly to me for starters. And to anyone appalled by watching an otherwise intellegent and thoughtful person bend himself into rhetorical knots trying to come up with "reasons" to justify his urge to denigrate.

There is no sensible rhetorical claim to be made that the media gives too much emphasis to something and that one is tired of it. If you willingly subject yourself to the mass media and then invest the time to comment upon the media's coverage of a topic, you can't turn around and fault them for that coverage. You're asking for it both ways, you don't want to ignore it yet you say it isn't worth paying attention to. Which is it?

Repetition of the minutae of Michelle Wie's life by the media (which BTW I'll take your word for since I'm not aware of much beyond the the wall-to-wall coverage when she's playing in a PGA Tour or LPGA Tour event) is probably more interesting to far more people than your own repetition of your distaste for the young woman and her advisors and managers.

[Garland Bayley]

Sorry Bill, but there are just not that many kings and queens in the world that are worth going and playing golf for. All it seems we are left with are figurehead and despots.

[Bob_Huntley]

Oh, and BTW, those who compare her to Mozart don't know Mozart and to a laughable degree.  He had accomplished by 7 or perhapsarguably even 4 what Wie has yet to accomplish on a  comparative basis.

Bill,

In my book Mozart was "The Greatest."

Bob

[Craig Sweet]

Bill...when you are 16 you have to either (A) make your own opportunities, or (B) have someone think you are deserving of being given an opportunity.

I'd say Michelle Wie has done both.

Her shotmaking ability, and total domination of "kids her own age", prompted speculation as to how she would fair against older competition. Thus opportunity was there.

Why do you not want to discuss her golfing ability? After all, she is a golfer, and currently plays golf "for a living".

[Garland Bayley]

Bill,

The skills are of course different. It is much easier to hit a wide piano key with a childs finger than it is to hit a 300 yard drive to the center of the fairway. Even, I can hit a piano key more often than I can hit the drive.
Before you bring up the violin, I can hit notes on the violin better than I can hit the drive too.

Many think JN is the greatest of all time. MW is clearly more the child prodigy than JN. She broke par far sooner. She went low far sooner, etc.

As Craig says, why don't you talk about MW's shotmaking as a child prodigy?

What's lacking then? Maybe she has been drawing golf holes in her notebook at school like I did when I was in school. If so, chances are they are as good as Rees Jones draws. That would put her totally on "par" with WAM.

[Anthony Butler]

Anyone who knows anything about Mozart would probably agree he is the greatest prodigy the world has ever seen. The guy was composing operas still being performed nearly 300 years later when he was little older than 10! That's a little beyond showing potential, he was the best in the world in his early teens.

In sports however, the evolution from child prodigy to being the best in the world can't take place until the late teens simply due to the development of the human body. Since girls mature earlier, you can fast forward this a couple of years...

At some point in  the near future Michelle Wie needs to edge away from her father-who seems a little closer to Stefano Capriati than Earl Woods.  Same deal with Morgan Pressel. Her emotional outbursts indicate that grandfather Herb could end up with another burnout on his hands... just like his son Aaron Krickstein. Top 10 in the world at 16... out of the game at 23.  

 

[Garland Bayley]

She made $4303 for her work on the golf course. Which begs the question, did Tiger ...
 

[Jim Nugent]

I agree that Mozart was the greatest known prodigy.  I also agree, for the reasons already stated, that Redan's analogy of Mozart to Wie has zero value.  The fact that Redan made the analogy, and apparently thinks it is valid, does show how far bent out of shape he is on this subject.