# Congratulations Michelle Wie **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 17, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875 "2009-11-17T03:09:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/21 "2009-11-17T20:03:06Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > What is the difference. I have read similar articles for years. Same difference as to why you don’t read very many articles these days analyzing Steve McNair’s scrambling ability. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/22 "2009-11-17T20:56:09Z")
Driving distance for Tiger Woods this year: 298.4 yds., which places him 21st on the Tour in that statistic. Do you really think Tiger is only 21st on the Tour when it comes to how long he can hit the ball if he wants? :rolleyes: Tiger, like Michelle Wie, does not try to hit the crap out of the ball on every drive. The drives he tries to hit long may not be on holes the Tour is measuring. I am willing to bet that Michelle Wie can still hit the ball 300 yards on a good day. It’s just unlikely that she chooses to try very often. What is a glaring statistic is that she has a really abysmal driving accuracy stat. Of course, she is 22nd in GIR, which in my opinion, of the skill stats, is the one that best correlates to good results in tournaments. Even though she hits a lot of drives in the rough, she gets out of the rough regularly and makes the green. Which might mean that her drives into the rough are really not that inaccurate, and are simply going through the intended landing areas just barely into the rough. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/23 "2009-11-17T21:27:58Z")
Does the LPGA get rid of square groove next year? It will be interesting to see what will happen. The PGA tour may have accuracy coming back over distance. They will get fliers again. Now ,blast away and you can still get out of the rough and stay on the green. Next year maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/24 "2009-11-17T21:31:00Z")
IIRC, the LPGA will be following the newest USGA rules. Personally, I think the rules are “much ado about nothing” ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/25 "2009-11-18T01:38:42Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Possibly the dumbest title ever hung on someone. > > She won a tournament before she could drink a beer, ferchrissakes. You mean the one she just won six years into her career? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/26 "2009-11-18T01:47:25Z")
She turned pro at age 16 but she could not join the LPGA tour full time until she hit 18. And this is her first full year on the LPGA tour. Based on all that it’s dumb to say she’s 6 years into her career. She just needs to stick to the LPGA for a while and do well there. Maybe down the road she can try to play in a mens tourney. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/27 "2009-11-18T01:54:31Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > She turned pro at age 16 but she could not join the LPGA tour full time until she hit 18. And this is her first full year on the LPGA tour. Based on all that it’s dumb to say she’s 6 years into her career. She just needs to stick to the LPGA for a while and do well there. Maybe down the road she can try to play in a mens tourney. That’s misleading at best. She was playing LPGA events back in 2002, and started playing PGA events in 2004. She was given plenty of sponsor exemptions on the LPGA and PGA tours, which is why she had no need to officially join the LPGA. With exemptions she played almost as many events as she does now. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/28 "2009-11-18T02:14:07Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > You mean the one she just won six years into her career? Who gives a shit? She’s the same age Tiger Woods was when he won his first, which means she has a whole bunch of years left in front of her. Comparing her to Anna Kournikova is something that internet sports fans have been doing for several years b/c they think it’s original. It isn’t, and it’s a stupid comparison. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/29 "2009-11-18T02:36:08Z")
It’s not stupid at all. Michelle Wie and Anna Kournikova both received huge hype far out of proportion to their success. They were both basically endorsement machines who occasionally played sports. No matter how loudly you huff and puff, the comparison is not stupid. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/30 "2009-11-18T02:40:45Z")
Tiger was going up, up ,up. He did not start his 20s after a huge dead period. She is not Tiger. She has had some decent finishes this last year. Maybe it is going to be her time. I just have not seen enough to be convinced, but I may be wrong. I just hate the prima donna atmosphere around her. I hate her special treatment. She did not earn it. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/31 "2009-11-18T03:28:35Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > It’s not stupid at all. Michelle Wie and Anna Kournikova both received huge hype far out of proportion to their success. They were both basically endorsement machines who occasionally played sports. No matter how loudly you huff and puff, the comparison is not stupid. Thank you, this is exactly what I meant by that comment. But there’s no ill will, and I was mostly just joking around anyway. I hope she does well. But she never really _has_ in accordance with the amount of endorsements and hype she received, regardless of who’s fault any of it is. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/32 "2009-11-18T04:14:57Z")
Depends on what you mean by “success.” Kournikova has reached the quarterfinals or better (top 8) in exactly 2 singles Grand Slam tournaments in her career, which is now pretty much over. Wie, despite being at least 10 years from her golfing prime (an age typically for a woman golfer in the late 20’s), has 6 top 10’s in Grand Slam tournaments, many before she graduated high school, a performance that no other teen golfer, male or female, can match. She hurt her wrist a couple of years back, which really slowed her down (almost certainly she would have won before now if not for that). It wasn’t “hype”, she was the real thing, and still has plenty of time to add to her resume. Sure, her parents got the cash-making machine in motion, but I can’t blame them for that-if the wrist injury had proved permanently debilitating they would have looked quite foolish if they waited til she was 20 to go pro. I guess your child is a failure if she can’t quite grasp differential equations at age 11. ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/33 "2009-11-18T04:20:46Z")
Sheesh, EVERY frickin’ golf thread’s gotta be about Tiger? 🙂 I just want to say how utterly insane it was to write her off so early in her career. So she had a really lousy beginning. Ever hear of Andre Agassi? John Elway? Phil Mickelson? Heck, Alex Rodriguez was a miserable colossal worthless disappointing scum of the earth failure until earlier this very month. Listen, the godlike all-world megastar killing machine who comes out of the gate at Mach 5 and never lets up for a microsecond is the EXCEPTION. Yes, what Michael Phelps did would’ve been astronomical even it wasn’t some screwball once-every-four-years sport. Same for Lance Armstrong. But this is a colossal letdown due to all the hype she’s received? Oh, right, because she took a lot longer to break through than the _stupid sports media noise machine_ demanded, she’s a failure. Hey, this means that if she doesn’t immediately jump to the PGA Tour and go head-to-head against Tiger…well…it means _nothing_. See, that’s the the thing about golf, something pretty much no other sport has. None of these guys owes us a damn thing. Well, okay, if the fans came out for you, don’t cut out early (something John Daly learned the hard way), but otherwise, they are what they are, and if you’re disappointed, upset, mad, incensed, hitting the roof, or clawing your eyes out, well, don’t mean none to them. Ain’t no team to be the goat of\* or city to pull a Benedict Arnold on. As for the win itself…well, I’m pleased, both for her and the LPGA. Say what you will about the physical abilities of women athletes (any one of whom is about 200 parsecs beyond me), it would really suck if girls had no professional leagues to aspire to. This was a long time coming, not just for Wie but everyone who has a stake in her and wants her to be a legitimate force on the tour. If there’s a downside, I’m not seeing it. Re. Anna Kournikova. Okay, I’m only going to say this one more time. IT WAS THE INJURIES. She had shown flashes of greatness, and don’t forget, she had three doubles titles. Not the caliber of Lindsey Davenport or Martina Hingis, perhaps, but still a solid second-tier star. Had she stayed healthy and worked on her weaknesses (particularly accuracy), she absolutely would’ve won _some_ singles title at some point. Once the injuries started piling up, that was all she wrote, and with her second career well underway, there wasn’t much incentive to continue wrecking her body for nothing. Wie’s problems were nearly all mental, and golfers can last a _lot_ longer than tennis players. No comparison. You heard it here first. (As for Danica Patrick, it’s hard to judge her place, mainly because nobody gives a damn about IRL. 😃 ) - Yes, I know of the various team competition Cups. You want to talk about that, start a new thread. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/34 "2009-11-18T06:34:05Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > But this is a colossal letdown due to all the hype she’s received? Oh, right, because she took a lot longer to break through than the _stupid sports media noise machine_ demanded, she’s a failure. Hey, this means that if she doesn’t immediately jump to the PGA Tour and go head-to-head against Tiger…well…it means _nothing_. Actually, it’s more like she took a lot longer to break through than the _stupid sports media noise machine_ **that her handlers created** demanded > [@](#): > > Re. Anna Kournikova. Okay, I’m only going to say this one more time. IT WAS THE INJURIES. She had shown flashes of greatness, and don’t forget, she had three doubles titles. Anna Kournikova was a phenomenal tennis talent who by all rights should have (and could have easily) won around a dozen singles titles. It is a nigh-inconceivable statistical anomaly that she never won one. I would bet good money that every single women’s player currently in the top 50 has won at least one singles title. The WTA (and ATP) tours are friggin’ endless; something like 44 straight weeks with tournaments every single week except majors, which go for two weeks. Nobody can play every tournament, so there’s easily a dozen tournaments a year with no quality players to speak of. The tennis equivalent of boxing a tomato can. Kournikova no doubt played in dozens of tournaments where she was light years more talented than everyone else, but for whatever reason (bad luck, injuries, whatever) she just didn’t happen to win one. EDIT: Anyone catch the women’s side of the most recent US Open, with the storybook performances by a slew of unknown and barely ranked women? They all had something like a half dozen singles titles each. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/35 "2009-11-18T11:01:14Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > You mean the one she just won six years into her career? Yes. Do you really think that how long she has been playing professionally is a more important statistic than how old she is? Seriously? ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/36 "2009-11-18T13:48:20Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > It’s not stupid at all. Michelle Wie and Anna Kournikova both received huge hype far out of proportion to their success. They were both basically endorsement machines who occasionally played sports. No matter how loudly you huff and puff, the comparison is not stupid. Bull. Michelle Wie doesn’t occasionally play a sport. She’s a young girl who is about a year older than the youngest player to ever win an LPGA tournament. Anna Kournakova never won a tournament. The comparison is idiotic, and is nothing more than a rush for people to jump on the anti-Wie bandwagon. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/37 "2009-11-18T13:51:31Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > Yes. Do you really think that how long she has been playing professionally is a more important statistic than how old she is? Seriously? Evidently Tiger was a bit of a failure for taking 4 years to win his first PGA event. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/38 "2009-11-18T15:08:05Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > What is the difference. I have read similar articles for years. [How about reading a more timely article](http://www.thegolfchannel.com/tour-insider/wie-buzz-lpga-tour-championship-33913/). ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/39 "2009-11-18T16:11:48Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Evidently Tiger was a bit of a failure for taking 4 years to win his first PGA event. Twisted stat. Tiger was an amateur and played in from 1 to 4 events while he was going to school. When he started to compete regularly he won. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875/40 "2009-11-18T16:19:35Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Twisted stat. Tiger was an amateur and played in from 1 to 4 events while he was going to school. Because he wasn’t good enough to compete at a high level on the tour. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/congratulations-michelle-wie/517875.md?page=3)