Luke Donald looked like he aged 5 years in 18 holes on Sunday playing in the last group at the PGA with Tiger.
Those handful of amateurs have a high turnover, though, don’t they? It’s not like the same amateur keeps getting exemptions and keeps coming in dead last like Wie.
As has been said, she has nowhere near the drive of the men. The men are using 7 and 8 irons on their second shot while Wie is using a 2 iron. She is wholly outclassed out there.
The concerning thing is that that she wasn’t always hopelessly outclassed against the men. She started out just missing the cut. Then she started not being in contention for the cut. Now she’s dead last in the events she enters. For however much the mental aspect of golf matters, she’s lost it.
The dichotomy there is because of your poorly defined terms. Think of it this way:
Every single Thursday shot in golf is a clutch shot just like a baseball clutch plate appearance in the first half of the season. All the Friday golf shots are the equivalent to a penant race clutch at-bat. Every single Saturday shot is the clutch eqivalent to a baseball playoff clutch appearance.
But Sundays? All the shots on Sundays, beginning with the very first tee shot, are the clutch equivalent of bottom of the 9th, down by a run plate appearance in game 7 of the World Series.
Or do you not make any distinction between a clutch plate appearance in the 5th game of the season and the last game of the World Series? Your logic seems to imply that you don’t, which I find counter-intuitive.
Actually, she hits the ball pretty far-- farther than some of the guys on tour. But golf is more than hitting the ball far. If that’s all it were about, then Jason Zuback would be beating Tiger.
That’s what I thought, but everything I’ve read recently seems to argue against it.
From here:
And here:
And here:
It sure sounds like she’s being outdriven by the men to me.
Her stats show here to be 280 off the tee (avg), puting her 158th in driving distance. But… Ernie Els is listed at 295, which would put her maybe one club more on an approach shot. Your cites talk about the “big hitters”, and there are at least 20 PGA pros who avg > 300 off the tee. On some holes, though, you have to really bomb it to get past a dog-leg, so maybe she was struggling there. Normally she isn’t hampered by her distance off the tee like Annika or many of the other LPGA players would be.
In the context of my second cite, I’m not sure “big-hitters” was a reference to a type of male player, but rather as a generic reference to male players in general as compared to Wie. The end of the sentence is what makes me wonder: “forcing her to use long irons on her second shots when the men were pulling out 7-irons.” Just a generic reference to “the men” when talking about who was using 7-irons while Wie was using long irons.
Also…158th in driving distance? I know next to nothing about golf, so forgive this ignorant question. Aren’t there only 144 players in any given tournament? How many guys are there on the tour? To put it another way, what does everybody ranked 145 and beyond do while the top 144 are playing in tournaments?
And finally, dovetailing back into the OP nicely, I don’t think she is currently hitting 280, but that’s just a WAG. My first cite seems to be saying that being outdriven by the 300+ guys is getting to her mentally, which is resulting in her overswinging and losing even more distance on her already shorter drives, further compounding the problem.
I don’t recall any distance issues ever being mentioned when she was just barely missing the cut, but I’m seeing her (lack of) distance talked about quite a bit now that she’s coming in dead last.
The context seems to be that playing against markedly superior competition is sabotaging her psychologically, which is eroding her physical skills in the game. That would be reason #1 to stop playing the men and focus on the LPGA tour in order to “learn how to win.”
I am, of course, just speculating.
A common misstatement in this thread? Where?
I don’t follow golf at all. Is there an overlap between the lower ranking men on the men’s tour and the highest ranking women on the ladies’ tour? In other words, all other things being equal (e.g. golf course), would the winner of the women’s competiition routinely beat the bottom scorer of the men’s competition? Would the winner of the women’s competition EVER beat the bottom scorer of the men’s competition?
If so, then dividing the tours by sex seems a bit arbitrary. If not, then I agree that Wie ought to play for the LPGA until her score would beat the lower ranking men’s score. And THEN she should attempt to move up.
Personally I’m not sure there is a physiological reason why women and men couldn’t compete side by side in golf. This is one of the few sports that can make that claim, bowling being another.
I said, although not here because the subject never arose, that both Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus should have quit PGA tour events before they did because there were just taking up places that some rookie could have used.
Billy Casper was a great player in his day but he should have quit playing the Masters Tournament at least 10 years before he finally did.
The guys scrambling that everyone says that Wie has beaten are trying to make a living. She is just playing around.
These things are hard to judge due to the vagaries of golf. For instance, the tournament that Wie chose to play this week is on the third longest course on the PGA tour. This places her at a huge disadvantage but she knew that and chose to play anyway.
Comparing her results to anyone else is moronic, I don’t recall any male high school student playing 6 PGA events before they turned 18 and if they did how would they do?
Let’s compare Wie’s career so far to the top men’s money winners. Forget Tiger Woods - next time he misses a cut the world ends.
Jim Furyk: first played a PGA event 1988, first cut made 1994 missed first 4 cuts.
Phil Mickelson: first played a PGA event 1988, first cut made 1990 missed first 3 cuts.
Mark Calcavechia turned pro in 1981 and entered 14 tournaments that year. He made one cut and earned $404.
And these are guys with lots of competitive golf behind them.
What’s wrong with it is that Wie has a chance, in terms of her ability and drive, to be the greatest golfer in the history of women’s golf. She’s phenomenally talented, way, way ahead of anyone you can name was at the same age. She’s an imposing physical specimen - she’s 6’1" - drives the ball 280 yards at 17 years of age, and definitely has the elements to master the other aspects of her game. She’s already had some excellent finishes on the LPGA tour. She could eclipse Annika Sorenstam and then some.
However, her parents’ bizarre obsession with turning her into a sideshow has the potential to burn her out, retard her development as an athlete, and ruin that chance. Sure, she’s making good bux now, but this approach risks the possibility that she’ll be burned out of golf by the age of 20. A smarter development plan will avoid that. Let her be successful on the LPGA tour, win some events, any by the time she’s 23 THEN she’ll maybe be a force to be reckoned with on the PGA tour.
The issue isn’t whether she beats a man from time to time or whether she’s bumping someone else off the event; it’s that it’s not going to be good for Michelle Wie in the long run.
Rarely. A close reading of this thread should give you some idea of how women compare to men in tournament golf.
The LPGA does not allow men. The PGA is open to anyone who qualifies.
Scores in golf are relative. A 72 on one course might be excellent, while on another just average. Women’s courses are significantly shorter than men’s courses. There is no good way to compare a score on a woman’s course to a score on a man’s course. The best female player in the world, Annika Sorenstrom, competed in a men’s tournament and could not make the cut.
Upper body strength is a big physiological difference. Women can compete with men if they play from the ladies’ tees, which shorten the course.
In your dreams, I’m afraid. She’ll be able to beat as many men as the Williams’ sisters, Sharapova or Henin, could beat, if they competed against those ranked in the top 500 of the Men’s Tennis Tour.
There are subtle differences between golf and tennis, the main one being that in golf the quality of your opponent’s shots does not hinder your own shot production.
I’m not sure I buy that comparison. Women’s tennis players are hopelessly outclassed by their male counterparts because strength and speed is so critical in that sport. The men’s serves are vastly harder, their returns harder, everything is much, much faster.
Not every sport is the same in terms of gender disparity.
In golf, Wie’s strength disadvantage is only relevant in her distance hitting, and as has been pointed out, she’s not doing all that badly as it is. Given more training and experience she could be hitting the ball as far as some of the PGA’s shorter-driving stars. Mike Weir doesn’t drive it any further than Wie, and he won the Masters and makes a million or more every year. BEyond that, there’s no reason Wie can’t putt, chip, and manage her game as well as any man.
Actually, there are very few sports where women can compete on a equal level with men. Equestrianism comes to mind. Even in sports that require very little physical facility, such as pool, snooker or darts, the top women professionals hardly register. Michele may grow to 6’3", and have tremendous height and weight advantages over the likes of Weir and Leonard, but they’d still thrash her. Even Pavin, approaching 50, would wipe the floor with her. And he’s not just make cuts - he’s still winning tournaments on the PGA tour.
Lisa: The best female golfer now (perhaps ever) is Annika. She is as dominant on the LPGA as Tiger Woods is on the PGA. She played in one PGA tournament a few years ago and missed the cut by, IIRC, 2 strokes. And that was course she picked that specifically played to her skills-- shot accuracy as opposed to distance. That’s no slight to Annika.
You would think that if a woman could drive the ball like the men, then she’d be able to compete with the men. But it seems to be more complicated than that. The men’s courses are tougher on a number of levels, included how thick/deep the rough is cut and is does take a good amount of strength the get out of the rough when your ball is burried. As more women play golf and get good (Wie has her own competitors coming up), we should be able to get a better idea of whether or not the two sexes can play on an equal footing. But your average guy is just going to outdrive your average woman, so it’ll only be the very top female players who can hope to have a chance to compete with the men.
I note you mention Weir - we’re thinking on the same lines. So far as I know, the only title of any note that Michele has won is the Amateur Public Links. Now, as alreay noted, on the basis of that extremely snady foundation, she’s playing men and getting whipped - and that’s by European journeymen. The likes of Weir, Pavin and Leonard have achieved what they’ve achieved by dint of hard work and taking koncks that have hardened them. They’ve served their apprenticeship. Michele hasn’t, and, powered by her parents, appears not to want to. More importantly, she appears not to recognise that serving yoru apprenticeship is absolutely vital for success in the kind of exceedingly tough world that is professional golf. This is partly a cultural thing. Asians generally don’t have the same respect for doing things fair and square and srving your apprenticeship as Americans do. If there’s a shortcut to be taken, through connections and the like, then, heck, then take it. “We earned it.” But at what cost. Because another very important difference between tennis and golf is that a mishit in tennis costs a point; at golf, it could cost you three shots.
As she gets older, I think Michele will win on the LPGA, but she’s not going to get the mental toughness on that tour (which is nearly as mediocre as the women’s tennis tour, which is saying something) to equip her to take on the men. If anything, going to play men’s events will rough her up, rather than toughen her up, and thus it could prove counter-productive to alternate between the two as her career progresses.
Good luck with that.
I don’t give a shit about the apprentice stuff. I know many of the pro golfers get ticked off about it, but if she could compete on that level, then I’d have no problem with her playing. But she can’t. In fact, I understand perfectly well why the sponsors want her to play. I just think it’s bad for her career.
And you can’t blame it on her ethnicity-- there are crazy sports parents out there of all ethnic backgrounds.