Michelle Wie

The letters (and posts) continue to arrive about Michelle Wie's DQ, with most pro-Wie, or at least anti-old rules. Interesting point here by Dave Benson of Naples, Florida: What about that official scorer?

Ron Sirak makes an excellent point when he says "when Manny Ramirez hits a home run everyone sees it". However, he also states that the players are the only ones who know what they scored. Whoops - what happened to the official scorer that walks each hole with the players, or the young man holding the staff that gives the current score verus par. I started playing golf when we had the stymie rule and professional golfers did not have people walking with them to keep their score. I am very much in favor of a player having to sign their score card. But, why shouldn't one of the officials in the scorer's tent be responsible for ensuring that each player signs their card before leaving the area as Michelle did ? Based on the incidents that have happened when a golfer is disqualified like this, an improvement should be made to have someone monitor the situation.

Good point, Dave. But as a player, don't you want to be there to check the official scorer's card? It's your living, after all. As a tournament director wrote to us, the whole point of the scorer and the volunteers in the scoring area is to prevent what happened to Michelle Wie from happening; in effect, to protect the player from herself.

It's the player's card, though, and coming from that point of view, some Golf World readers aren't at all sympathetic. Here's Richard Oswald:

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Why do we have certain people who what rules changed for their own conveniences?

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I'm tired of all this constant whining.

And R. Phillip of Chicago, on the letter of Pete Gitlin of Phoenix, who said, "Does Manny Ramirez have to sign a card after hitting a home run to validate it?"

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Regarding Mr. Gitlin's letter I find it very funny. If Manny Ramirez hits a home run and fails to touch all the bases and is called out maybe he can tell the umpire he forgot the rule and they will feel sorry for him and give him a home run and perhaps an offensive lineman forgets the snap count and he jumps offside and maybe the headlinesman will feel sorry for him and not call a penalty. Maybe Michelle should take the time to read the rule book, she will probably be amazed with whats in there. Let her win a tournament the right way.

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Meanwhile, Wie hangs tough.

__"I wish I had no critics, but I'm realistic. People will write negative things about me. The only thing I can control is myself. A good score will resolve everything," she said. __

Wie says she her goal is not simply to play the weekend of this week's Reno-Tahoe Open.

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"I'm not going to focus on making the cut," she said. "My goal this week is how to make less bogies and more birdies. Focus on the little things, and it'll take care of itself."

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Play hard. We're rooting for you.

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Andrew Reddington/Getty Images)