Michelle Wie sets her sights on Asia

KOCHI (Japan)—Michelle Wie was heading home after an early exit from her first overseas tour as a pro but the Korean-American teenager said she hopes to return to play more tournaments in Asia. “Yeah, I’d love to come back,” the 16-year-old prodigy said in the TV commentators’ booth at the weekend, watching the 1.2-million dollar Casio World Open after she failed to make the cut for the final two rounds.
“Obviously, I was really disappointed,” admitted the high school girl from Hawaii. “But, even though I didn’t make the cut, I did play two rounds of fun”. Despite her powerful swing which at times exceeded 300 yards, Wie struggled with her short game as usual. She bogeyed six times in the second round, including the final two holes.
She missed the cut by just one stroke at four-over-par 148 on the long 7,220-yard Kuroshio Country Club course. But even before the event started, she promised: “We’ll probably be back, playing in Asia sometime soon”.
The daughter of Korean-born parents who settled in Hawaii in the 1980s, she is studying Japanese and Chinese. “I think she is mainly interested in playing in Korea, China, Japan and other Asian countries,” her father Wie Byung-Wook, 44, told newsmen.
But he said she was also likely to play in other Asian golfing nations if the opportunity arose. “Wherever there is an opportunity, she will like to play,” said Wie Byung-Wook who started his only child playing golf at age four and has since been her caddie and manager.
“We need some more time to finalize her next year’s schedule as it’s getting more complicated,” he said about the strategy for his photogenic 183-centimeter (six-foot) daughter, who is handled by William Morris Agency which is more famous for Hollywood stars than sports icons. Wie has yet to receive any prize money as a pro but her appearance fee here was estimated at one million dollars.
Her early exit from the tournament was expected to halve the spin-off effect of her presence on the local economy to an estimated one billion yen (eight million dollars). “It is very unfortunate,” said Kazuo Kashio, president of title sponsor Casio Co. “But it is true that Miss Wie’s participation has boosted the event”.
Wie has played in Asia once before, at the CJ Nine Bridges tournament in South Korea two years ago. As an 14-year-old, she finished last in a 69-player event, which was co-sanctioned by the US women’s tour LPGA and won by local talent Lee Jee-Young attesting to the wealth of globe-trotting South Korean women golfers.
Her result here may be a disappointment for Wie whose amateur career was studded with four top-10 finishes in 24 LPGA events, including second behind world number-one Annika Sorenstam of Sweden in the LPGA Championship this year. Wie must wait another two years to reach the minimum age for a full LPGA tour. She is likely to play eight LPGA events next year on sponsor exemptions.
“If she plays the full schedule on the women’s tour now, she’s very competitive,” her swing coach David Leadbetter told newsmen. “To play the men’s tour, Michelle may need to get stronger, hit longer, mature mentally, just a number of factors,” he said. “But she’s got all the ingredients and it’s really just time that she needs to mature”.
The Casio Open was the first tournament since Wie was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard in the LPGA Samsung World Championship last month when she turned professional with endorsement deals with Nike and Sony worth an estimated 10 million dollars. Wie had aimed to make history here by becoming the first woman to make the cut in an event on a major men’s tour in 60 years since Olympic athletic gold medallist Babe Zaharias won the Los Angeles Open on the US PGA tour.—Agencies