I do enjoy watching their much-ballyhooed icons implode. Anyone who knows anything about sports knew that Michelle Wie was unlikely to ever be a champion of any kind, let alone one capable of playing with the big boys:
Even against the men, Michelle Wie hasn’t shot this big a number since she was in the ninth grade.
Wie’s woes continued Saturday at the LPGA Championship when she shot an 11-over 83 at Bulle Rock, leaving her in last place by five shots among the 84 players who made the cut and uncertain if she would show up for the final round….
An LPGA Tour official clarified midway through the back nine that “Rule 88,” in which non-tour members are banned for a year if they fail to break 88, would not be an issue because it only applies before the cut is made. A week ago, Wie withdrew at 14 over par with two holes to play with a bad wrist, raising speculation that she was worried about losing the rest of her LPGA Tour schedule with two more bogeys.
People always forget that because women mature faster than men, many women will never be any more athletically capable than they were in ninth grade. Every year, in track-and-field, eighth and ninth grade girls win state championships and the newspapers predict that they might be dominant for the next four years. And while this does happen occasionally in the case of an unusually talented athlete, usually their performance begins to decline their junior year.
That’s not necessarily the case in sports wherein experience and practice is as important as raw athletic ability. But golf is a game that is as much, if not more, mental than physical, and Wie has always been mentally shaky despite her physical abilities. I thought it was a huge mistake to throw her in with the men at a very young age; it increasingly looks as if those pushing her to compete at a higher level than she was ready for have succeeded in destroying her confidence and possibly even her career at the less-competitive level of the Ladies PGA.
I always appreciate female athletes who demonstrate respect for their sport by refusing to play along with the feminist cheerleaders. Mia Hamm, in particular, was great when after numerous reporters who knew nothing about soccer asked her how badly the World Cup-winning US women’s team would beat the men’s team. She just looked at them as if they were insane and answered them accordingly.