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Posted on: Thursday, June 7, 2001 Around the greens By Bill Kwon Lets see now. If Michelle Wie can win the Jennie K. Invitational at age 11, how many more times can she win that prestigious womens tournament before she turns pro?
As we have already witnessed, there are no limits to what the golf prodigy can do. Wie is already the youngest player to win the Jennie K., and the youngest and first female to play in the 93-year history of the Manoa Cup. Last summer, Wie qualified locally for the U.S. Womens Public Links Championship and stunned everyone by becoming at age 10 the youngest player to qualify for a USGA event. She will again be one of the Hawaii players trying to make the 64-player field in the 2001 womens publinx at Kemper Lakes in Chicago, June 19-24. There is no golfer in the 11-12 junior girls level locally who can compete with the 5-foot-9 and still growing Wie, who already towers in height over her peers. And, because juniors her age play shorter courses measuring 3,000 yards, its no challenge for Wie, who hits 270-yard drives. It will be two more years before Wie can join the 13-14 year-old division, which plays longer courses. And she has to wait until she is a ninth-grader before she can play for the Punahou golf team. Her teaching pro Casey Nakama, along with her parents Byung Wook and Hyun Kyong Wie, believe that only then will it be worth Michelles time to play in local junior golf tournaments. Short of moving to the Mainland to face better competition, as Grace Park did when she left the local junior golf program after dominating the 11- and 12-year-old players here, Wies only option in improving her game is playing against older competition. With so few womens tournaments locally, Wie felt compelled to play in mens events such as the State Amateur, the Maui Open and the Manoa Cup to get more competitive experience. So theyre not ego trips for the precocious youngster. Playing in the Manoa Cup was a good learning experience, according to Wie, who lost her first-round match, 3 and 2, to Doug Williams, a 43-year-old California businessman. Itll help for the publinx, she said. It will also help in two other events she hopes to qualify for this summer the USGA Junior Girls and the U.S. Womens Amateur. Improving her game, not winning trophies, is Michelles main goal right now. The only way of doing that is playing against par, not the competition. Lori Castillo Planos, who won back-to-back national womens amateur public links titles in 1979-80, perhaps said it the best, paraphrasing a quote by Sam Snead: Its beating par, not others that counts. As good as Wie is right now, the question is, will she suffer from burnout or lose interest in golf as she matures. Her golf hero, Tiger Woods, has never lost interest since first picking up a golf club as a toddler, and Wie doesnt think she will either. Im never going to get tired of golf, said Wie, who rolls 800 practice putts a day, a thousand on weekends when she also hits five buckets of balls on the range. Already poised on the golf course, Wie is quickly becoming more comfortable handling interviews with the media, quite an accomplishment for someone her age. Yes, Wie would like to play on the LPGA Tour one day. However, she also wants to get her college degree and become a university professor, just like her father. There will come a time when her father, who lines up Michelle on every shot from tee to green sometimes to the irritation of others in her group, will have to stop that practice and let his daughter make her own decisions and mistakes. Making mistakes is part of a learning process, says Nakama, and eventually he will have to let her do that. But shes so young, I think its OK what hes doing right now. Whatever the case, Michelle Wie is the hottest topic of conversation at the moment as she continues to redefine and even extend the limits of womens golf in Hawaii. Bill Kwon can be reached at bkwon@aloha.net
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