Wondering about Wie

A person for whom Wie's wrist is a source of pain is her swing instructor, David Leadbetter, who disagreed with Wie's decision to play at Pine Needles. "The women's majors came two months too early for Michelle," he said at Pine Needles. "She wants to play, fair enough, but you have to think of the future. She's always gone after the ball explosively, but now she's not, and there are some funny shots showing up. That's not her, so I don't see the point. What concerns me is that it will affect the psyche."

At the same time, Leadbetter was taking criticism from Gary Gilchrist, who coached Wie in 2002 and 2003 at the Leadbetter Academy in Bradenton, Fla., until the Wie camp replaced him with Leadbetter.

"Michelle always had a big body turn with great tempo, with the body and arms swinging at pretty much the same speed -- you know, the Big Wiesy," says Gilchrist, who now coaches LPGA champion Suzann Pettersen. "But now there's a lack of body turn, and the arms are going faster, and the tempo is gone. She's dropping the club to the inside too much, and snap-hooking and blocking the driver. She hasn't improved."

Counters Leadbetter: "Whoever says that she hasn't improved doesn't know what they're talking about. Michelle's much better technically. You look at the repertoire of shots she was able to hit -- the three-quarter shots -- you can't do that with a long, loose swing.

"The whole point is, she can swing it like a guy. She doesn't swing it like a regular girl. The problem is, when she plays on the men's tour, the tendency is when she starts going at it really hard she loses synchronization and hits the ball worse. That's what happened toward the latter part of last year."

It's easy to understand why. The ability to play with the same power as PGA Tour pros, and compete at the same level, is the cornerstone of Wie's mystique. But to this point, based on her scores, distance and quality of her shots, it remains a false premise. If Wie is to make it true, she will have to become the first woman in any sport (other than horse racing and auto racing) to compete equally with men. That the Wie camp is beginning to think the endeavor is a reach was evident in its decision to decline a sponsor's exemption to the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic, where she played in 2005 and 2006.

Wie's tribulations drew schadenfreude more than sympathy from her peers. Her refusal to join the LPGA while pursuing PGA Tour sponsors exemptions -- which sent a message that she considered women's golf a place where she could dabble and dominate -- has generated resentment. She lost more support when, after her controversial withdrawal at the Ginn Tribute, Wie practiced two days later at the site of the next week's McDonald's LPGA Championship. It prompted a rebuke from tournament host Annika Sorenstam, and when Wie retorted that "I don't think I need to apologize for anything," she was roundly criticized.

"She hasn't backed up the hype, and everything she does now produces negative commentary and negative energy," says Gilchrist. "She has become an outsider, and that's bad. Look at Colin Montgomerie. He was always an outsider in the U.S., and he never had mojo. You need that.

"It's part of why Tiger and Phil play so well -- everybody getting behind them, the spirit pulling them along. Right now, it's pulling against Michelle. People are against her. They even think her skirts are too short."

Gilchrist also gives voice to the perception that Wie's parents are too involved in their only child's life.

"B.J. is the strategist and Bo is the perfectionist," says Gilchrist. "I always told them, 'The less people see you, the more they will like you,' but has Michelle ever hit one ball or played one hole on her own? They're arrogant, they stick to themselves, and they don't have many friends out there. A lot of people give them good advice, but they don't seem to listen."

Pearl Sinn-Bonnani, one of the first Korean-born players to play on the LPGA Tour, knows Wie's parents, both of whom grew up in Korea before moving to Hawaii. Although she believes their approach has been indispensable to Michelle's success, she also worries that it's becoming counterproductive.

"What American parents might consider pushing, Korean parents consider necessary support," says Sinn-Bonanni. "It can produce really high achievement -- just look at how many Koreans are on the LPGA Tour. For Michelle, it would be complicated to defy her parents because they are so closely involved in all her commitments. But you can tell in her voice that she's a little desperate. And the things that have been happening, it looks like she is looking for a way out that would be acceptable."

Stanford offers such an escape, although Wie's parents have been house-hunting nearby. Wie says she's looking forward to living in the dorms during her freshman year, but she might be underestimating the academic challenge, opining that she expects to have more time to play golf than she did in high school before adding, "I'm not much of a library person."

The energy Wie devotes to her studies could determine whether she joins the LPGA Tour in 2008. Through early July, Wie still needed about $100,000 in winnings in '07 to finish among the top 90 money-winners and be exempt from qualifying school for next year. However long Wie spends at Stanford -- she says she intends to graduate -- the respite from golf doesn't guarantee she'll emerge with zest for the game required to be a champion. She's often compared to Tiger Woods, who also attended Stanford, but Wie hasn't demonstrated the same sustained hunger for practice and improvement. As Wie told a Fortune magazine reporter in 2005, "If my mom weren't there, I probably wouldn't practice."