Michelle Wie needs to take a step back.

OK it’s time to end the obsession with Michelle Wie becoming a PGA tour star golfer. Yes she is a great player especially for her age. She has an athletic swing, and can crush the ball as far as most men. To take it a step further she is the best young athlete probably across all sports right now. However she needs to regroup with her father who is her manager, and set up a more traditional structure for success.

It starts with working her way up from the bottom. This won’t be the same as the average golfer doing this so let me explain. Simply put she should try and get into the Top 10 on the LPGA tour on a consistent basis first. I know this will be tough for her to do, and it will involve swallowing some pride. There is no question that this is the path to take to become a woman who does some things in the profession we’ve never seen. It will give her some more structure, and slowly build her confidence as well.

I’m glazing over the thought that maybe she is not good enough to make the all those things happen. Well that’s because Michelle Wie is good enough by any standard, and focusing on one thing at a time instead of trying to play on the PGA tour immediately is just right. It will inevitably guarantee the Top 10 finishes she is capable of making.

Following some Top 10 finishes she will eventually start winning some LPGA tour tournaments. It will come naturally with the other good things going on as she builds on her success. If she can manage to start winning 5 or more tournaments a year then her dad can give her clearance to play on sponsor exemptions with the PGA. Right now her dad is just letting her play in whatever tournament she wants. There is nobody saying to her lets think about this before we sign-up.

The PGA players would probably be more receptive to it this way as well. The reason there has been a small backlash with her is that she does take away spots from guys that have really played better than her in competition. When things don’t seem fair people start complaining. If this continues the way that it has the backlash from PGA tour players is only going to get worse. Significantly worse.

She has tried making the cut a few times now, and has only come close once. Wie needs to stop dreaming and get some focus back in her game.

The final straw that got people actually annoyed with Wie is when she faked a wrist injury to get out of the LPGA Ginn Tribute recently. If she would have had one bogey on the last 2 holes she would have failed to break 88. LPGA rules state that if a member of the tour does not break 88 in an event they would not be eligible until the following year. Therefore her fake injury (yes no question it was faked) did not sit well with the other women on tour. To add to that she was practicing 2 days later with no wrist problem. Even Annika Sorenstam stated she thought if was disrespectful of Wie. Michelle, people are begging you to stop trying to play above your head, and focus on just winning one LPGA tournament. Please at least give it a try. Pardon my begging.

Granted Wie is directed by her dad, and she is young so we’re willing to give her a break as fans. It still won’t stop any of us from being sick of this over-hyped young superstar. Lets hope she falls out of the news for awhile so she can start setting a solid foundation for her career. It will do golf fans and the Wie camp some good.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Golf Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.