Michelle Wie, whose return to competitive golf after a dismal, injury-plagued 2007 season resulted in a last-place finish at the LPGA Tour's Fields Open on her home course at Ko-Olina Golf Club last month, withdrew March 21 from next week's Safeway International, citing an injured left wrist.

"I am extremely disappointed to miss the 2008 Safeway International," Wie said in a statement released through the William Morris Agency. "I'm so grateful to [tournament director] Tom Maletis and the entire tournament staff for offering me this great opportunity and hope to be back again next year." Wie, who was to play the Safeway on a sponsor's exemption, first hurt the wrist when she fell while running a year ago.

According to WMA, Wie reinjured the wrist when she hit a ball embedded in a thick rough at the range at Stanford March 13. She immediately consulted a doctor at Stanford, where she began her freshman year last September, and saw a hand specialist in Los Angeles March 17. X-rays, an MRI and a CAT Scan did not show any major injury. Her doctor diagnosed it as a sprain.

Wie played one PGA Tour event and eight LPGA tournaments in 2007, missing four cuts, withdrawing twice and finishing last or next-to-the-last in the three tournaments in which she completed 72 holes. Based on her play last year, and because she is not a member of the LPGA, Wie is not currently qualified for any of the major championships.

--Ron Sirak

HONOLULU, Hawaii -- Michelle Wie has been the headliner of the Sony Open in Hawaii since she first played in it in 2004, as a 14-year-old amateur, and nearly made the cut. This year, she was not offered a sponsor's exemption, and there is scant evidence that she ever played here.

The Honolulu Advertiser, for instance, had a 20-page special section in advance of the Sony Open, and her name appeared only twice, and both times in stories on other players. She wasn't mentioned until the 12th paragraph of a story on Tadd Fujikawa and the 15th paragraph of a story on Paul Goydos. In the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, it was the eighth paragraph of a story in Wednesday's paper before she was mentioned.

A native of Hawaii, Wie has been displaced as a teen idol by Fujikawa, a 17-year-old high school junior and a Honolulu resident who tied for 20th in the Sony last year as an amateur. Fujikawa is playing this year as a professional.

Moreover, a second 17-year-old Honolulu golfer is in the field as well, Alex Ching, a high school senior who gained a spot in amateur qualifying.

Wie, it turns out, is not only gone, but forgotten as well -- for the moment, anyway.

-- John Strege

Ron Sirak reports today that David Leadbetter, the one person in the Michelle Wie camp whose relationship to reality is more than casual, says she is done playing against the men--for now--and that she's going to focus on getting her game and, more important, her confidence back. These are very similar to the words Leadbetter uttered last May, only to be overruled by Wie's parents. This time, Leadbetter insists, the entire Wie camp is listening.

Leadbetter says that Wie, a freshman at Stanford, will interrupt college to get back into competition. "That's the plan, to miss the spring quarter and focus on golf full time," Leadbetter told GolfDigest.com.

Wie skipping the spring quarter makes sense since the winter quarter at Stanford ends March 16, 11 days before the Safeway International near Phoenix, an LPGA venue where Wie has played before.

Leadbetter says Wie will make her return in one or both of the two Hawaiian events that kick off the LPGA Tour season in February. It means Wie won't be at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January, the PGA Tour event where she missed the cut by one stroke in 2004 and has missed by seven, four and 14 in her three attempts since.

"She's looking forward to getting back in the mix," says Leadbetter, who says she's 90 percent back. "She's talking about joining the LPGA. She's got a bit of sparkle in her eye again. Last year she was suffering.

"She came back from playing today and said, 'I really played good.'  She hasn't said that in a long time."

--Ron Sirak