When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Golfweek.com offers two nice primers for those hoping to target some Q-school players to watch (men here, women here). Both schools are in session Wednesday.
Beth Ann Baldry focuses on the biggest Q-school story of '08, Michelle Wie and reports that LPGA.com will have live scoring for the first time.
From Thomas Bonk's L.A. Times golf column:
David Leadbetter, Michelle Wie's coach, on Wie's playing strategy that has included playing PGA Tour events: "It's a shock to me and to her agents that this is happening. I don't think the family is making the right choice. There's definitely more to lose than to gain.
"I've put too much time and effort into Michelle to be able to sit by and watch this happening without saying something. If she doesn't stick to doing what's sensible, we could see one of the greatest potential talents the game has ever known going to waste."
A nine never helps. But worse for her, by the sounds of this
A +1 with five bogies and four birdies and beating some pretty good players.
In the July 25th Golf World, Ron Sirak pens "The View" titled "Defending the Rules" (not posted online). In it he notes this item related to the Michelle Wie scorecard signing incident:
In truth, the LPGA went out of its way to be fair. Tour officials did not find [out] about the Friday incident until after Wie teed off Saturday. After clarifying the rule with the USGA, the tour decided to let Wie finish her round uncluttered by the issue and then allow her to respond to the accusation. To her credit she verified the account.
To think this is some vendetta against Wie is simply wrong. According to the LPGA, her's was the fourth DQ this year for failing to sign, one of which occurred after the player in question had taken only a step outside the scoring area. Last year there were at least six such DQs.
I don't believe anyone sees this as an LPGA vendetta, do they? Seems more like LPGA incompetence or budget restrictions. Incompetence gets the nod here because, really, ten DQs in the last year or so?
In the interest of players, fans or sponsors, at what point do you (A) put an official in the scoring room (B) get local LPGA or PGA members to man the scoring tent or (C) put up an enormous sign on the back of the door saying, SIGN YOUR CARD, LADIES!
I contacted the PGA Tour to find out how many times a player was DQ'd for not signing their card in the last year.
Zero.
How many times this century?
Zero.
The last time that a PGA Tour player did not sign his card was 1997. 2005 (see JohnV's link below).
Michelle Wie was peppered with some interesting questions to plug her appearance at next week's Reno event (sorry, no linkable transcript). This exchange struck me as disturbing but not surprising:
Q. I also know the PGA TOUR can't pay any appearance fee, but do you get anything from your sponsors when you play on the PGA TOUR?
MICHELLE WIE: You know, I don't think I'm the right person to talk about my financial stuff. I have no idea what goes on.
Q. Is that your dad?
MICHELLE WIE: Yes. I just play.
But Wie’s sponsors have a lot invested in her, and time is running out this year on them getting any returns for the $10 million they gave her to celebrate her 16th birthday. She has only one sponsor’s exemption left on the LPGA Tour, and if she doesn’t make $80,000 or so in the CN Canadian Women’s Open next month she would face having to go to qualifying school to try to get on the tour next year.
And she had better get on tour soon, because her novelty act has long since worn thin. Wie might some day be a fine player, but she is no longer a precocious child playing against grown-ups and she still has yet to win a tournament.Joe Logan isn't too excited about the invite either. And this blog post lists the previous Wie debacles. Anyone excited about her appearance in Reno?
Whatever sympathy I had for Michelle Wie and her clan following the weekend DQ was lost with the announcement that she's going to play the Reno PGA Tour event. Doug Ferguson reports.
This just looks awful for the LPGA more than Michelle Wie or the Rules of Golf.
How do not have an official from the Tour doing scorecards and preventing this?
Sue Witters, the LPGA's director of tournament competitions, disqualified Wie in a small office in an LPGA trailer at the golf course after asking her what had happened.Are you kidding me? No...
"She was like a little kid after you tell them there's no Santa Claus," Witters said.
Wie said that after she finished her round on Friday, she left the tent where players sign their scorecards and was chased down by some of the tournament volunteers working in the tent who pointed out she hadn't signed.
Wie returned to the tent and signed the card.
"I thought it would be OK," she said.
But Wie, according to Witters, had already walked outside the roped-off area around the tent. At that point, the mistake was final.
According to the LPGA statement, LPGA rules dictate that the scoring area is the roped area defining the boundary of the scoring tent.
The area may also be marked by a white line, which has the effect of decreasing the size of the scoring area. At the State Farm Classic, the white line wasn't deemed necessary and as a result, the scoring area was the tent.
Witters said she and other tour officials didn't learn about the error from volunteers until well after Wie teed off Saturday. They let her finish the round, then took her to the office where she and her caddy, Tim Vickers, were informed of the ruling.
Wie, who is playing a part-time schedule while attending Stanford, opened with a 5-under 67 and followed with rounds of 65 and 67 -- though the last two won't count.
In noting the sponsor loss at the seemingly healthy Safeway LPGA event in Phoenix, Bill Huffman says it's time to get "a little bit scared" if you're, say, The Brand Lady.
Four tournaments into the 2008 season and already two of those four events are on the endangered list and need sponsors if they are to return in 2009.
For those keeping track, the Fields Open in Hawaii — the second tournament of the season won by Paula Creamer — reportedly is not only searching for a new title sponsor, it also needs a new course to host the tournament.
Closer to home, the Safeway International announced last week that its title sponsor — America’s third-largest grocery store chain — is bagging it after next week’s tournament at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club, which is willing to hang around if a new sponsor can be secured.
The Safeway International had made record-breaking crowds on the LPGA its calling card, much like its big brother, the FBR Open, does on the PGA Tour. Granted, the numbers were dramatically smaller, but 151,000 fans came out last year to watch Lorena Ochoa win the tournament, and that’s about double the average galleries on the LPGA.
What sponsor would walk away from a tournament that has produced champions like Annika Sorenstam, Cristie Kerr and Ochoa in the past four years, all the while attracting record crowds? And what about Superstition Mountain, voted as the “best-conditioned course on the LPGA’’ the past three years by the players?
Speaking of the Safeway, reader Phil noted that the reason for Michelle Wie's latest WD is going to prompt more questions.
Wie's agent, Jill Smoller of the William Morris Agency, said the Stanford freshman reinjured her left wrist when she accidentally hit a ball that was embedded in thick rough on the driving range at Stanford on March 13.
Thick rough on the range?
Lewine Mair breaks the news but does note she may play in a men's event in Japan later in the year. Steve Elling reports the same news with extensive quotes from David Leadbetter. Elling notes actual news with word that Wie is taking the spring semester off at Stanford to focus on her game even though she currently is not exempt for any women's majors.
Somewhere Earl Woods is shaking his head.
Meanwhile, also don’t be surprised if the TPC Champions course, located right next door to the Stadium course at the TPC Scottsdale, shares the venue for the FBR Open starting in 2009.He also drops this item on Michelle Wie, the Sony Open and here recent WD from the Casio which I don't think I've seen elsewhere:
In the past the FBR Open, played in early February, has had to limit its field to 132 players due to frost delays in the mornings and dwindling daylight in the late afternoon.
Utilizing two courses, the first two days, it would enable the TOUR to better handle a 156-man field. The use of the two courses at Torrey Pines is why the field at the Buick Invitational is 156 players.
Under this plan, the weekend rounds for the FBR Open would remain solely at the TPC Scottsdale.
The question of whether Michelle Wie will play in the Sony Open in January is a complicated one and one without an answer at the moment.
Sony Open officials say they will announce their sponsor’s exemptions in November.
Meanwhile, Wie still represents Sony products. But she missed the cut there earlier this year by 14 shots. Casio World Open officials this week basically disinvited Wie to their November event, saying, according to one spokesman, “Basically, we have determined that she cannot play to her full potential because she has yet to recover from hand injuries suffered early in the season.”
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
