If Only Mr. Wie Had Been Mr. Woods!

Unfortunately, we've had to witness the fizzling of Michelle Wie's career over the last two years. It's unfortunate because I don't believe it had to happen, regardless the injury. Though David Leadbetter has coached her, I don't think he's been involved with anything but her swing. He's too wise about professional golf to have allowed the blunders that took place in her career development.

Here's where the whole thing derailed, her father has little to no idea about professional golf or professional sports for that matter. You don't develop a kid into a superstar by having them jump over all the developmental stages that are necessary in a sport that requires physical, mental and emotional maturity. This isn't female gymnastics where you typically peak in your teens. The world's best golfers are all women.

Tiger Woods, the best ever, did not start playing the PGA Tour at age 16. Did Mr. Wie think his daughter was better than Tiger? That's the way it looks. He should have looked at the Earl Woods game book and then stolen it! Does anyone but Mr. Wie think that building on platform after platform isn't important in golf. Just this week at the Accenture World Match Play Championship, none other than Mr. Woods says his success in match play now has a lot to do with what he learned as a teenager playing in US Amateurs and having to come from behind to win. Ditto for college.

So why can't a teen phenom just jump over 2 or 3 steps and go right to the big time? Because it's a very difficult sport that requires lots of seasoning and the ensuing increase in maturity. Most sports in which the best in the world are adults require a long learning curve. Take the baseball system that starts with T-ball and goes through Babe Ruth League, college, summer leagues in places like Cape Cod and then the major league farm system. Golf is a game that requires physical maturity. It's a game where being off or on is the difference of one degree or one micro second. Try managing that when your hormones are raging and your body is changing by the week. I just caught a few shots of Michelle over the weekend at the LPGA tournament in Hawaii. Her swing is looser than it was two years ago, but you can also see her body has changed considerably. She's changing from a girl to a woman and that is going to require a lot of physical adaptation.

And then there's the whole issue of competition. When you play on the LPGA or PGA you are playing against people who play golf for a living. It's their job, they do it at least 8 hours a day. If you don't practice all the time you can't pull off the tough shots under pressure that can mean the difference between winning and losing. Michelle had a shot on Friday about 20 yards of the green, down an embankment. Her line was obscured by some tree limbs so that she had to keep it low. She didn't pull it off, which is not surprising. She's a freshman at a prestigious college, I'm sure that takes up a lot of the time that professionals like Annika and Lorena use to practice such shots.

When you compete with the best, how can anyone think you can do that without keeping the same conditioning and practice regimens that they do. Tiger has proved that point to every pro on tour. It's impossible for a kid in high school or even college to do that. College golf is a terrific platform to play against people who are in the same situation you are and be able to work on your competitive skills including your emotional game. Unfortunately, because Michelle is a 'pro' this opportunity has been taken away from her.

Regardless of her injuries last year, Michelle has shown that she needs all the conditioning that the golf 'farm' system could have given her. However, because of poor parental decision making she's barred from that. How can she go to college and compete with true full-time professionals when she still has so much growing - physically, mentally and emotionally - to do. She definitely has talent, I wonder where she'd be right now if she had been the daughter of Earl Woods?