Page 8 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
U.S.A.
July 7, 2014
The maturation of Michelle Wie, major champion
By Doug Ferguson
AP Golf Writer
INEHURST, North Carolina —
Michelle Wie put her table-top
putting stance to good use in the
late hours after she became a U.S.
Women’s Open champion.
In a photo she posted to Instagram, Wie
is bent over so sharply that her back is
parallel to the ground. Only instead of a
hitting a putt — like the 25-footer for
birdie on the 17th hole at Pinehurst No. 2
that clinched her first major — her head is
buried in the Women’s Open trophy.
A text message to Meg Mallon would
seem to confirm what she was doing.
“She said, ‘It takes 21½ beers to fill up
the U.S. Open trophy,” Mallon said.
The maturation of the 24-year-old from
Hawaii has been fascinating to watch.
She was a 12-year-old with chubby
cheeks and braces who stood behind the
18th green at the Sony Open and talked
about her dream of playing the Masters.
Wie played in the final group of a Ladies
Professional Golf Association (LPGA)
major when she was in the eighth grade.
She had a chance to win three majors when
she was 16. She shot a 68 on the PGA Tour
to miss the cut by one shot at age 14, which
inspired her to compete against the men
and invited sharp criticism when she
couldn’t even beat the women.
No one moved the needle like Wie in
women’s golf.
And perhaps no other female athlete,
especially one so young, endured so much
condemnation. To her credit — and her
parents deserve credit for this, too — she
never lashed back at those who questioned
the path she chose.
Wie reached the ultimate destination
last month, even if she never could have
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imagined how she would get there.
Stardom included a detour to two stages of
Q-school, just so she could become a
part-time player while attending — and
eventually graduating — from Stanford.
“This is exactly where I wanted to be,”
Wie said on the eve of the final round at
Pinehurst. “When I was 15 and 16, I think
the troubles that I came into when I was
younger is that I tried to plan my life, and a
lot of times things don’t happen the way
they should — or the way they should in
my mind.”
She had a road map at 15?
“Oh, yeah,” she replied, smiling at a
room full of reporters. “Don’t you all?”
It would be easy to suggest that Wie
arrived as the player everyone thought she
could be when the final putt fell for a
two-shot victory, just moment before the
church bells began ringing at Pinehurst.
She arrived much earlier. She won in
Hawaii earlier this year. She was in the
last group at a major. She was a contender
just about every week.
“This was just the exclamation point,”
Mallon said.
Mallon won her fourth major 10 years
ago at the U.S. Women’s Open, the same
year she first got to know a tall teen from
Hawaii who could hit the ball a mile. She
saw a prodigy. She also saw a girl.
“I adore the kid,” Mallon said. “We were
paired in a pro-am when she was 14 and we
had a blast. We were challenging each
other with short-game shots and we made
a bet. She said, ‘If I win, I get to put streaks
in my hair.’ I went over to Bo (Wie’s
mother) and asked if that was OK. She won
and put streaks in her hair that after-
noon.”
Wie’s game was questioned last August
when she was a captain’s pick for the
Solheim Cup — by Mallon — over a player
who had won that year and was ahead of
Wie in the standings. Mallon called it a
“no-brainer” because she needed someone
who could handle the big stage. Few knew
it better.
“I was looking at picks about three
FIRST MAJOR. Michelle Wie poses with the U.S.
Women’s Open trophy after winning the golf tourna-
ment in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Wie, now 24 years
old and a Stanford graduate, has been one of the big-
gest stars in women’s golf since she was 13 years old.
(AP Photo/Bob Leverone)
weeks out and Michelle came up and said,
‘Gosh, Meg, I know I’m six months away
from where I want to be. I am so close.’ And
you kind of look now at where she is,”
Mallon said.
Wie is leading the LPGA Tour money
list, approaching $1.6 million. She had
never earned over $1 million in a season.
She is No. 7 in the women’s world ranking.
And she figured this out all on her own.
She always had the swing and the power
to win a major. Her putting for years was
the weakest part of her game. And yet she
won the Open by going an entire week
without a three-putt, by making a tricky
five-foot putt to salvage double bogey on
the 16th hole and keep the lead, and by
making one of the hardest putts at
Pinehurst at the 17th. It was fast and
broke in two directions, and this one
slammed into the back of the cup nearly as
hard as she slammed her fist when it fell.
Wie created this unique “table-top” style
all by herself. She followed Mallon’s advice
in the offseason by putting away the video
and bringing more feel into her game.
There was no better feeling than holding
the trophy — or drinking out of it.
She no longer tries to map out her life as
much as she once did, though Wie allowed
herself such a moment a week before her
win, when she walked up the 18th fairway
with Martin Kaymer when he won the
men’s U.S. Open.
“I thought to myself, ‘I want to be here on
Sunday. I want to feel this exact thing,”’
she said. “It’s a dream come true that it
actually happened.”
Sixth-grader Lucy Li’s Open: a 78, then ice cream
By Doug Ferguson
The Associated Press
INEHURST, N.C. — Lucy Li
showed her age only when she
finished her historic round at the
U.S. Women’s Open.
Just like any 11-year-old, she went
straight for an ice cream.
The youngest qualifier ever at the
Women’s Open played a grown-up game at
Pinehurst No. 2, except for three holes that
made her 8-over 78 look a lot worse than it
was.
“She looks 11. She doesn’t talk 11. And
she doesn’t hit the ball like she’s 11,” said
Catherine O’Donnell, who played with her
in a sunbaked opening round on a course
that only four days earlier hosted the
men’s U.S. Open.
The sixth-grader from the Bay Area was
the star attraction, right down to her Stars
& Stripes outfit to celebrate the occasion.
She wore a mid-drift shirt patterned after
the American flag, with a similar motif for
a skirt, complete with silver stars that
matched the color of her braces.
Li wound up 11 shots behind Stacy
Lewis, the No. 1 player in the world, who
opened with a 67. But one moment was
telling.
The kid made a seven-foot birdie putt on
the par-5 fifth hole and headed to the next
tee, her braided pigtails swinging with
each step. The media and a large gallery
followed her right past the adjacent green,
where hardly anyone noticed Lewis
making her way around Pinehurst with no
bogeys.
Only this was more than just a sideshow.
Li missed only one fairway — by less
than a yard. Even though she hit fairway
metals into half of the holes, she rarely got
out of position. Now if she could only take
back three shots that led to big numbers.
“It was a lot of fun. I kind of struggled
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today, but it was great,” Li said, pausing to
lick her ice cream between answers. “I
mean, it’s 8 over. It’s not bad. But I was 7
over in three holes, so that’s 1 over in 15
holes. So yeah, I just need to get rid of the
big numbers.”
Li had the same score as O’Donnell,
Natalie Gulbis, and Jessica Korda, a two-
time winner on the Ladies Professional
Golf Association (LPGA) Tour this year.
Perhaps most remarkable about her
round, besides the 13 pars and two birdies,
was how she bounced back from mistakes.
“That’s what I was so happy about in my
round,” she said. “Because after I got
doubles and triples, I was able to get it
back. Like I made a good stretch of holes
after the double on the first hole. And after
the triple, I birdied No. 5. And I got a lot of
pars after that.”
Li left a tough angle for her third shot on
the par-5 10th hole and came up short and
into a bunker. The sand shot looked
reasonable until it kept rolling off the back
of the green. She chipped with her wedge
(a pink shaft) to about eight feet and
missed the putt to take double bogey.
Another double bogey came on the
450-yard 16th hole when her fairway
metal went into a bunker some 20 yards
short of an elevated green, leaving a shot
so hard even the best men would have a
tough time. Her bunker shot was not
strong enough, and she wound up missing
a seven-foot bogey putt.
Asked to have one swing back, it would
be the wedge on the short third hole. She
went left of the flag, and it trickled off the
turtleback green — the signature of the
Donald Ross course — and into a bunker.
She blasted out over the green, chipped on
to 18 feet, and three-putted for triple
bogey.
But she made a pair of smooth birdies —
a 6-iron to 15 feet on No. 1, and a wedge to a
right pin position on the fifth hole — along
LI HITS THE LINKS. Lucy Li putts on the 11th
hole during the first round of the U.S. Women’s Open
golf tournament in Pinehurst, North Carolina. The
sixth-grader from the Bay Area, the youngest qualifier
ever at the Women’s Open, celebrated the achieve-
ment with a Stars & Stripes outfit. (AP Photo/Chuck
Burton)
with some tough par saves. The best came
at the 426-yard eighth hole, when her
5-wood from 198 yards went long and over
a steep slope right of the green. She lofted a
pitch perfectly, and it rolled six feet by the
cup. This is the same hole where John Daly
putted off the green so many times in 1999
that he whacked the ball with his putter
when it was still moving and rang up an
11.
“Give her that shot again and she can’t
do that another 50 times, probably,”
O’Donnell said.
Along the way in a 5½-hour round, Li
often plopped to the ground in the shade
and sat until it was time to hit, one time
munching from a cup of fruit.
“I normally sit down even more than
that,” she said, giggling as always.
Kaymer a week earlier had used a putter
exclusively when he was just off the green.
Li chose to chip because that’s what made
her more comfortable. She won the driving
and chipping portion of the Drive, Chip &
Putt Championship two months ago at
Augusta National.
That was for kids. This is for grownups.
She fit in just fine.
“She’s so much more mature than I could
possibly imagine,” said Jessica Wallace,
the other player in their group. “She’s a lot
better than people thought. She’s very
capable on this golf course. She played like
she belongs out here. And it was a real
pleasure.”
The youngest player to make the cut was
13-year-old Marlene Bauer, who tied for
14th in 1947. That was the second U.S.
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