Michelle Wie was 1,744 miles from golf's Valhalla on Friday, but she was happy and possibly on her way to something mystical of her own.
On a sweltering, sunny day in the quiet of the Coachella Valley, with the eyes of the golf world focused east on the men and the Ryder Cup in Louisville, Ky., Wie made it through the semifinals of qualifying for the LPGA Tour.
Playing at the Mission Hills Dinah Shore Course in Rancho Mirage, she shot a one-under-par 71, totaled an eight-under 280 for the four-day event and easily gained a spot among the top 30 for the tour's final qualifying event in Florida in December. Get through that and you have the right to play on the tour all of 2009.
This is news because it is so normal.
Little of what Wie has done as a teenage prodigy since she started playing major events six years ago at age 13 has been normal.
The LPGA qualifying process is the usual path. Annika Sorenstam took it. So did Natalie Gulbis, Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel and Se Ri Pak. It is the way, the norm.
Wie turns 19 in three weeks and has said she hasn't been old enough for a qualifying event until now. Both Creamer and Pressel petitioned for shots before they turned 18, got them, and never looked back. So the age thing clearly isn't the whole story for Wie.
Much to the chagrin of the women pros, and the golf world in general, Wie has transcended the game. She is tall and tan and young and marketable. She has made millions in sponsorships from the likes of Nike, Omega and Sony. She has played more men's pro events than some of the men pros who want to and can't get in. In her eight PGA Tour events, she has missed the cut in all of them.
To get into those fields, she has used sponsor's exemptions, special invitations. It has not been what she has done, or how she has played, but who she has known, how well her looks sell tickets and whose product she will wear and hawk.
Her event summary reads: 63 pro events played as either a pro or amateur; 49 against women, 14 against men. Zero wins.
In many ways, Wie reflects our current shallow tendencies to worship celebrity at the expense of achievement. She is a website darling, a photo-shoot dream. Vince Lombardi was wrong. Winning isn't everything.
Wie is, in some ways, the Anna Kournikova of golf, except that Kournikova won several doubles titles.
