You can afford a lot of psychotherapy with a $10M per year income.
That’s actual tournament winnings, not endorsement contracts. Annika doesn’t get paid as much as Tiger, but she she makes more than $400k/year in endorsements.
We know plenty about golf-- she’s only a novelty for the non-fan. And we know when someone is out of her league. She is.
Look. I have no problem with women playing on the PGA (sorry, Zoe, I should call it the PGA, not the men’s tour). I cheered Annika on when she played at the Colonial. I’d love to see her try again. And I have not problem with women being given the occasional sponsor’s exemption. My point is that MW is not doing herself any favors, as far as her golf game goes, by playing these PGA tournaments. Those of us who know something about golf know you have to learn how to win. She’s learning how to lose instead.
From my link – *Wie’s contracts kick in the big bucks when she plays in a certain amount of men’s tournaments.
*
Appearance money is forbidden on the PGA Tour. Tournament sponsors of non PGA events can pay her just for showing up.
Usually men, as women seldom play in men’s tournaments.
She never has qualified for a men’s tournament. She has been given an exemption into the ones she has played, explained a couple of times upthread. Some PGA players are exempt from qualifying based on an various criteria; monet won, previous history in the tournament in question, winning one of the majors, etc. All non-exempt players must quailfy in a Monday morning tournament. Since she does not have PGA card, she cannot compete in those.
The PGA, unlike the LPGA, does not have a clause forbidding the opposite sex. It is just that no woman has ever earned a Tour card, so usually men are the only competitors.
Sure, but nowhere near as much as there is to be made on the men’s tour. The 100th player on the PGA money list for 2006—a guy i’ve never heard of,* and who hasn’t won a single tournament—has made more money than the 14th-placed woman on the LPGA tour. On the men’s tour, 69 players have over $1 million in prizemoney, while only 7 women have made seven figures this year.
I’m not arguing whether this is right or wrong. I’m merely saying that, given these numbers, isn’t it at least a little understandable that someone might take their chances and play on the men’s tour?
- that doesn’t mean much; i’m not a great fan of golf
Just wait until she’s old enough for Maxim. That’s an issue that would fly off the shelves, Should be good for another 10 mil all by itself.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Just as an example, Wie will get an exemption for the Sony Open in January. Sony is one of her major sponsors.[/quoet]
Actually, I think that’s the one (and only one) tournament she should play. It’s her home course, and she came closest to making the cut there (missed by one stroke).
No reason if she doesn’t care about winning tournaments. I can’t emphasize this enough-- you need to learn how to win on Sunday. It’s not just playing good golf. Everyone on tour plays good golf. That was the advice Tiger gave her, btw.
Annika tried to make it onto the men’s tour a few years back. IIRC, Vijay Singh had some not-so-nice things to say about her.
She didn’t make the cut either.
You don’t win anything if you don’t make the cut.
I know nothing about golf, so i’ve got a question; apparently she missed the cut in 2004 by one stroke, and in 2005 by two. Is that good? I mean, is one stroke a lot of ground to make up, or could it be attributed to bad luck?
That wasn’t very clear, sorry. How about this; is it closer to someone losing 1-0 in a soccer match, or 5-0? Was it a clear defeat, I guess.
Annika didn’t so much “try to make it” on the PGA. She knew she couldn’t win a tour card to play. But she wanted to test herself at a higher level since she was dominating the LPGA. She went about it exactly right, although one might argue she should’ve tried the Nationwide Tour instead of the PGA. She played one tournament to test he skill and challenge herself. And she’s raking in the dough on the LPGA tour with $20M in tournament winnings in her career so far (not counting endorsements) and she still has plenty of years left to play.
If you make the cut that means you are in last place when play starts on Saturday. ASFAIK, it is extremely rare to win a tournament from that position.
Missing the cut by one or two strokes is only good if it represents a progressively beter performance. There are a couple of sayings in golf; ‘the rub of the green’ and ‘play itas it lays,’ which essentially mean that luck is no excuse. If you are consistently missing cuts by one or two strokes you may as well miss by ten strokes; the result is the same.
Quoted for emphasis. This is not just JM’s opinion. It is pretty much SOP.
Golf tournaments are played over 4 days. After the first two, a “cut” is established. If you don’t make the cut, you go home w/o any money. Usually it’s the top 70 players, out of maybe 120. The remaining 70 or so players go for two more days to see who wins.
Like Contra said, she gets more sponsorship money if she appears at PGA events, but it sounds like you agree that anything she would make only from winnngs is negligable compared to her sponsorship money so she really has no financial need to compete in LPGA events.
I think that only a non-fan could consider her to be a novelty, and I don’t think she’s out of her league. She consistently finishes ahead of others, even if she doesn’t make cuts. She isn’t getting wiped out or finishing in a distant last place. She is already at least as competetive as the poorest performing men in the PGA and she’s only getting better. I don’t see it as an embarrassment, I see it as incredibly impressive. Plus, she’s going to keep doing a little better and a little better until sooner or later she will make a cut and could conceivably win a tournament. The greatest advantage men have over women is driving distance and Wie can drive as well as most of the men (she’s not Tiger but neither is anyone else). I see it as exciting to be able to watch her develop and get better in a context where there can be no equivocation about a difference in leagues.
This probably the crux of the disagreement. If this is not the strategy employed by almost all of the male players, why do you think it will work for her? She is a wonderful talent, but that does not mean that she is destined to succeed. It takes more than talent. She needs to learn to win.
Ok, thanks John and Contrapuntal. 
Check out the leaderboard for the current tournament [url=here. MW is easy to find-- just look for last place.
DtC: $400k is about the amount you’d get for winning one LPGA tournament. For the PGA it’s typically ~$1M. Last year Annika earned $3.6M in tournament winnings.
And btw, “making the cut” is not the goal in golf. The goal is to win the tournament. Like I said, MW will surely make the cut in a PGA tournament if she tries often enough. So would many LPGA players.
Check out the leaderboard for the current tournament here. MW is easy to find-- just look for last place. 
No, if she’s making $10M a year to lose, she’s already won. All she really needs now is a decent investment counselor.
What does “learn to win” mean? That just sounds like an empty cliche to me. You win by getting better. The more you’re challenged, the better you’ll get. She’s already better than some men who have PGA cards and if they deserve to be there, so does she.