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If Michelle Wie Makes the Cut, I’ll Do a Jean Van de Velte and Wear a Skirt

Okay, I’m taking bets. My bet is that Michelle Wie, probably the most poorly managed professional female golfer in recent memory, will miss the cut in next week’s men’s PGA Tour event.

I don’t know who makes decisions for her, but in addition to being disqualified for a second time in a professional event (hasn’t she played this game on a national stage since aged 14), she decides to add insult to injury and accept a sponsor’s exemption to play in an eighth PGA Tour men’s event. I think at this week’s Legends Reno-Tahoe Open, she’ll fail like she’s failed many times before even though this will be one of the weakest fields on this year’s PGA Tour.

Why does she do this? Well, it appears since she has no official status on any professional tour, she needs to get sponsor exemptions on the LPGA Tour just to be able to play. She has one more opportunity to use an exemption to finish in the Top 80 on the money list. If she doesn’t she’ll have to go to qualifying school. Right now she ranks, I think, 244^th on the LPGA Tour.

I’m so confident of my prediction that I’m willing to embarrass myself in front of the golfing world. If you think that I’m crazy, put your money where your mouth is and tell me I’m wrong. I’d be happy to see this play out. If I bet wrong, I will play my next round of golf wearing a skirt (a nice blue and green one). I will also make sure that my attire is photographed and publicized on this website.

All you Wie Warriors out there, are you ready to defend you idol’s honor? As G.W. Bush said ingloriously in 2003 “bring it on”.

Wow! Michelle Wie Only 16 Strokes off the Lead

In an earlier post I pointed out how pathetic Michelle Wie’s performances have been and how worthless the media’s continued fixation with her is.

I thought I’d provide a Day 2 update of the LPGA’s US Open. Let’s see now. Oh look. Christie Kerr, last year’s winner is only two shots off the lead. Paula Creamer is also two shots off the lead. Amateur Maria Jose Uribe, is only three shots off the lead. Where oh where is Michelle Wie?

Only sixteen strokes off the lead after two rounds. Our local fish wrap the Pioneer Press showed pictures after the first day. Who has the biggest photo? Not Annika, not Lorena, not last year’s champion Christie Kerr. No Wie gets the column inches.

I’ll concede that Ms. Wie was only 2-over in the second round, but that was way too little too late. I think it is quite obvious that Michelle Wie is never going to amount to anything. She’s never going to vie for #1 in the world, she isn’t going to win a major and her sponsors are not going to want to be associated with a third tier player. Sponsors and fans want a winner and at some point, as her contracts expire, the gravy train she’s been riding is going to dry up.

Sports fans will tolerate bad behavior, habits and hygiene if it they get what they want - victories. As Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis said so eloquently, “Just Win, Baby.”

This baby will never do that.

Wasting Our Time With Michelle Wie

Why oh why do we waste good printers ink (or in my case bytes) talking about Michelle Wie? She’s an albatross around the neck of ladies golf, an asterisk on the leaderboard of history, a sidenote in the annals of LPGA lore. People will say “Remember Michelle Wie, couldn’t she hit the ball far.” “Wasn’t she the one that almost won an LPGA tournament?” “Didn’t she have nice legs.” Or some other similar drivel.

Face it folks, Michelle Wie is done. Toast. Stick a fork in her. She’s been overhyped and overpaid. Nike should re-read their endorsement contract to see if there’s an out clause. She should concentrate on getting her degree at Stanford because there are no jobs for over-promoted also rans.

Yes, I’m bitter. Partially because I believed some of the hype a few years ago. But I’m really ticked off now because the media is so gullible to this hype. Let’s take a quick tour of the headlines from our media brethren before she took her first swing at the LPGA US Open this week:

The Pioneer Press in St. Paul: The Resurgence of Michelle Wie
The San Jose Mercury News : Wie: I Think I Can Win U.S. Open
The Charlotte Observer : Wie Says She’s On Upswing
The USA Today : With Injury Behind Her, Wie Poised to Make Noise at Open

After she took her first swing:

The Baltimore Sun : Wie cards 9 at Women’s Open, already out of contention
Reuters : Nine an ugly number for Wie at U.S. Women’s Open
The USA Today : Wie stumbles to a 9 on 9th hole at Open

And my favorite is from the Chris Baldwin, a realist at Worldgolf.com I wanted to point out some of his eloquent prose too: Michelle Wie shows where her game’s really at with 81 in the U.S. Women’s Open. In keeping with the sports psychologist babble that earns more scorn from Wie realists than even her play, the reeling hype machine feels she is close though.

“I can spring back tomorrow and shoot a low round,” Wie said moments ago.

Yeah right. Give it a rest girl.

Shirtless & Shoeless John Daly

What have thing come to for John Daly? The golfer for the Bubba set, is at it again. I ran across a video clip of John Daly, former PGA regular now just a sponsor exemption, playing golf with a local Arkansas TV personality . The talking head is ridiculed for his fancy Puma golf shoes, and Mr. Daly, is playing barefoot (scary) and shirtless (terrifying). I’m not sure why we still feel John Daly deserves TV time, but here he is the video .

Just Finished Reading Greg Norman’s Autobiography

I just recently finished Greg Norman’s The Way of the Shark, co-written by Donald T. Phillips. Now, autobiographies, or books co-written with other who can spell better, deserve a lot of qualifications. Someone is writing about themselves. They tend to be self-serving. Sometimes they turn out to be rants. They often try to re-write history and they are generally not even-handed. If I were to write an autobiography, I’m sure I would gloss over the areas that didn’t sound flattering and try to re-write some history before someone came along and did it for me in a way I didn’t like.

Greg Norman’s book is admittedly a bit self-serving. At times he attempts to set the record straight and tell his side of the story, especially with his efforts to create the ill-fated World Tour and the subsequent battle with the PGA and its president Tim Finchem. He also is almost completely silent on his breakup with ex-wife Laura and his new relationship with Chris Evert the tennis star.

Yet, after reading Greg Norman’s book, I find that he is much more than just a golfer. Yes, he was the world’s best golfer for over 300 weeks. Frankly, he was the Tiger or Jack of his day. In his book Norman goes to great lengths to show that he shouldn’t be defined by the huge meltdowns the golfing world was witness to. Yet Norman spends as much time talking about business and the lessons off the course that he’s learned as he does about golf. Norman has become a very successful businessman with holdings estimated to be worth over $500 million.

Greg Norman is also a brand. A conglomerate. An Aussie tycoon. His Greg Norman Golf Course Design company has built 61 courses around the world and has an equal number in development. He owns real estate development companies, a wine company, restaurants, cattle ranches, and his own grass (that’s turf not marijuana) called Greg Norman Turf Company.

Now in his mid 50’s, he is more than qualified to play the Seniors Tour, yet this past weekend he finished tied for 14^th at the Asian Open. Back in December, his previous stop on the European Tour, the South African Airways Open, he finished tied for 7^th . For someone that only occasionally plays competitively, finishing in the top twenty in his last two professional tournaments is pretty impressive.

I’ve also picked up another book on Greg Norman, this time a biography written in 1998 to get another perspective. I’ll report back on how much (or little) whitewashing of the Norman legend that Greg did in his own book.

Tiger’s Done Before He Even Starts

It is amazing the spectacle of rabid celebrity worship. I just read a headline from Yahoo at the start of the second round of the Masters that said “Anyone’s Jacket” in big headlines. The subtext then said: “Tiger Woods is now six shots off the lead with second-round play under way at the Masters on Friday.” This makes it sound likes he’s dying out there.

Let’s put this in context. For the last few weeks everyone was talking about Tiger as if he’d already won this year’s Master. It was a done deal. He was a shoe-in. The oddmasters had him at 2 to 1. A lock.

Yet this headline makes it sound like he done for. There’s no hope. He’s already six strokes behind. Too bad, maybe he’ll win the next one.

Whoa rabid Tiger worshippers. How quickly the media jumps off the bandwagon just so they can write a compelling headline.

Context my friends. CONTEXT.

Let’s not forgot that when this was written at about 10AM in the morning, Tiger hadn’t even teed off for the second round. His tee time was at 1:52 pm. Almost four hours later. Let me repeat that TIGER HADN’T EVEN TEED OFF YET!

A case of burying the body before the person has even died.

Mr. Media and Rapid Celebrity Worshippers, let the man actually play the course before you write him off.

Tiger Gives Away Four, Yes Four Buicks

I don’t know when this first appeared, but a customer of mine from New York sent me this YouTube video of Tiger pulling a fast one on a bunch of unsuspecting golfers. The reason Tiger is so cool is that he appears to really have a great time giving these cars away. Thanks Richard for the link.

Video of Plane Trying to Land - Wow!

For those of us that travel by plane, a recent video of an A320 trying to land at the Hamburg, Germany airport in a crosswind, should give us pause when we complain how much airline pilots get paid. Pilots are known to say that flying is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

The plane you see did land safely in a later attempt.

I’m sure after you check out this video, you’d be the first person to offer that pilot a raise.

Who Wants to Own a Golf Equipment Company?

I wouldn’t.

Golf equipment isn’t a very good investment these days. Look at Callaway. It’s stock has dropped 20% since July ($15.71 vs. $19.49), Golfsmith has faired even worse crash-diving 47% ($5.77 vs $10.95).

Two articles came to my attention on the golf equipment business recently: Cleveland Sale Appears Imminent and Huffy Corporation Sells Tommy Armour. Both appeared in GolfWeek Business. For leveraged buyout groups like the one that is selling Cleveland and the sporting goods conglomerate that is unloading Tommy Armour, golf isn’t fitting into their idea of making a profit.

Quicksilver, the current owner of Cleveland because of its acquisition of Rossignol skis in 2005, wants to dump it because the parent took its first annual loss in 15 years. Huffy, which acquired Tommy Armour, TearDrop, Ram, and Zebra when it purchased extreme sports manufacturer Gen X in 2002, later emerged from bankruptcy in 2005 and no longer thought golf fit into its future plans. Rumors are that Cleveland could be a TaylorMadeAdidas target, but nothing is official.

Last year it was sporting good retailers consolidating. Is 2007 the year for golf equipment manufacturers?

Golf Gear News Writes 100th Blog Post

Wow! How time flies. I didn’t realize this but just last week I wrote my 100th blog post on Hardwoods Golf Course in Garrison, MN. Way back on 9/12/05, when I did the first one, I never expected to still be talking golf. Yet, here I am.

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