Michelle Wie

Michelle Sung Wie was born in October 11, 1989. She is an American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. In 2006, she was named in a Time magazine article as "one of 100 people who shape our world." At age 10, she became the youngest player to qualify for USGA amateur championship. Wie would also become the youngest winner of the US Women's Amateur public links and the youngest to qualify for a LPGA tour event. Wie turned professional shortly before her 16th birthday, accompanied by an enormous amount of hype and endorsements. Wie was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her parents were immigrants from the Republic of Korea (South Korea) who came to the United States in the 1980s. Her father, Byung-wook Wie, is a former professor of transportation management at the University of Hawaii. Her mother was South Korea's women's amateur golf champion in 1985 and competed in a Miss Korea pageant. Her paternal grandfather, Dr. Sang Kyu Wie, a resident of Jangheung, Jeollanam-do, was an emeritus professor at Seoul National University. When she was born, since both of her parents had been Korean, Wie had been a dual citizen of both the Republic of Korea and the United States automatically. But, the Republic of Korea does not allow dual citizenship after the age of 21. Wie has opted for United States citizenship.

Wie graduated from Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii in June, 2007. On December 19, 2006, she announced that she would be attending Stanford University where there are family ties. Her paternal grandfather was a visiting professor and an aunt and uncle are both graduates. She enrolled in September, 2007 as a freshman, but as a professional golfer, Wie is not eligible under NCAA rules to play for Stanford's golf team. During her first three years at Stanford, she attended only during the fall and winter quarters, running from late September through mid-March each year. She took leaves of absence during the rest of the year to play professional golf. Wie began playing golf at the age of four. In 2000, at the age of ten, she became the youngest player ever to qualify for the Women's U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship. Eight years later, Wie's mark was broken by fellow Hawaiian Allisen Corpuz who qualified when she was five months younger than Wie had been when she set the record. In 2001, at the age of 11, she won both the Hawaii State Women’s Stroke Play Championship and the Jennie K. Wilson Women’s Invitational, the oldest and most prestigious women’s amateur tournament in Hawaii. She also advanced into match play at the Women's U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship.

In 2002, she won the Hawaii State Open Women's Division by thirteen shots. She also became the youngest player to qualify for an LPGA event, the Takefuji Classic held in Wie's home state of Hawaii. While she went on to miss the cut, her record stood for five more years until it was broken in 2007 by 11-year-old Ariya Jutanugarn. At the 2003 Kraft Nabisco Championship, Wie became the youngest player to make an LPGA cut,. She carded a 66 in the 3rd round, tying the amateur record for a women's major championship and qualifying her to play in the final group of the championship. In June 2003, Wie won the Women's Amateur Public Links tournament, becoming the youngest person ever, male or female, to win a USGA adult event. Later that summer, she made the cut at the US Women's Open when she was still just 13, the youngest player ever to do so. Wie was given a sponsor's exemption to the 2004 Sony Open in Hawaii, becoming the fourth, and youngest, female to play a PGA Tour event. Her second round score of 68 was the lowest ever by a woman in a PGA Tour event, though she went on to miss the cut in the tournament. She again played in the LPGA Kraft Nabisco Championship, finishing fourth. As part of the victorious U.S.team she became the youngest woman ever to play in the Curtis Cup. Wie started her 2005 season by accepting another sponsor's invitation to play on the PGA Tour at the Sony Open in Hawaii, where she again missed the cut. She played five more LPGA Tour events that year as well as a PGA Tour event, the John Deere Classic. It was her third outing at a PGA Tour event; she missed the cut by two strokes. She entered qualifying for the U.S. Amateur Public Links and became the first female golfer to qualify for a USGA national men's tournament, tying for first place in a 36-hole qualifier for the U.S. Amateur Public Links. Wie made the top 64 in the stroke play rounds to qualify for match play. She lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champion Clay Ogden. On October 5, 2005, a week before her 16th birthday, Wie announced that she was turning professional. She signed sponsorship contracts with Nike and Sony reportedly worth more than 10 million dollars per year.

Having turned professional, Wie was not a member of any professional tour. LPGA Tour membership age requirements require a golfer to be 18, although some players such as Morgan Pressel and Aree Song have successfully petitioned for an exemption to join at age 17. Wie chose not to request an exemption and was thus only allowed to participate in a limited number of LPGA Tour events when given a sponsor's exemption from 2005 until 2008. She also chose not to participate in the Tour's Qualifying Tournaments (or "Q-School") until December 2008, when she finished 7th to gain LPGA membership for the 2009 season. Wie played her first professional event in the 2005 LPGA Samsung World Championship, where she was disqualified from a fourth-place finish for signing an incorrect scorecard. A journalist (Michael Bamberger) reported she had illegally dropped the ball closer to the hole than its original lie the day after she completed her third round. At her other professional event in 2005, the Casio World Open on the Japan Golf Tour, Wie shot four over par to miss the cut.

2006 started with the PGA Tour Sony Open at her home course, the Waialae Country Club, Hawaii where she again missed the cut, this time by four strokes. In the initial Rolex World Golf Rankings in February, 2006, Wie was placed third behind Annika Sörenstam and Paula Creamer. She rose to second place in July but her limited schedule meant she failed to play the minimum of 15 worldwide professional women's tournaments over a twenty-four month period and she was dropped from the rankings entirely. In August, 2006, the calculation of the rankings was revised such that any player who had accumulated points in fewer than 35 tournaments had her ranking calculated as if she had played in 35. After the change, Wie's ranking dropped to 7th. In her first two tournaments on the LPGA Tour in early 2006, Wie gained a third place finish in the Fields Open in Hawaii, finishing one stroke off the lead, and finished in a tie for third in the Kraft Nabisco Championship, finishing one stroke behind, again. May, 2006, saw her play the Asian Tour SK Telecom Open, becoming the second woman (after Se Ri Pak) to make the cut at a men's tournament in South Korea. Wie reportedly received US$700,000 in appearance fees at an event that offered only US$600,000 in total prize money. In all, she reportedly netted US$5 million in appearance and endorsement money for the two-week trip.

In July, Wie played in the PGA John Deere Classic. After a 6 over par first round, she reached 8 over par and 10 shots above the projected cut line, before withdrawing from the tournament after the 9th hole, citing heat exhaustion. Two weeks later, Wie returned to the LPGA Tour, finishing in a tie for second at the Evian Masters, one stroke off the lead. She tied for 26th at the Women's British Open, where she drew controversy for hitting a piece of moss on her backswing while she was in a bunker. This resulted in a two-stroke penalty. In a post-round interview, Wie said, "I guess I knew the rule wrong, from what I always knew... if you swing through it, everything would be OK." In September, she competed in the Omega European Masters on the men's European Tour, where she finished last among the 156 competitors, 15 strokes over par. Wie missed the cut by 14 strokes, although tournament organizers reported that many of the 9,500 spectators on the first day came to see Wie. A week later, in Wie's third 2006 appearance on the PGA Tour, at the 84 Lumber Classic, she finished 14 over par after two rounds, 23 strokes behind the leader. At the LPGA Tour Samsung World Championship, Wie finished in 17th place in the 20-player field, 21 strokes behind the leader. Her last event of 2006 saw Wie compete in the Casio World Open on the men's Japan Golf Tour where she finished last, 27 shots behind the leader. With the conclusion of the Casio tournament, Wie had played 14 consecutive rounds of tournament golf without breaking par – eight on the LPGA Tour, two on the European Tour, two on the PGA Tour and two on the Japan Golf Tour. By the end of 2006, her first full year as a professional, Wie had missed the cut in 11 out of 12 tries against men, and remained winless in all 33 professional women's tournaments she had entered, the last 9 as a professional.

In June Wie played in Maryland at a sectional qualifier for the 2008 U.S. Women's Open. She finished in second place, earning one of the 35 qualification spots available. She shot an eight-over-par 81 in the first round of 2008 U.S. Women's Open and ended up with a 10-over total of 156, missing the cut. July saw Wie playing on a sponsor exemption at the LPGA State Farm Classic. She was in the middle of her third round when it was realized she had failed to sign her second round scorecard. Event organizers waited until the conclusion of that round to notify her that she was disqualified in order to give her an opportunity to explain what had happened. She was one stroke off the lead at the time. Two days later Wie announced that she had accepted an invitation to play her eighth PGA Tour event in the alternate field Legends Reno-Tahoe Open. She shot rounds of 73 and 80, missing the cut by nine strokes. Wie had expressed her desire to attempt to earn membership on the LPGA Tour for the 2009 season by earning the equivalent of 80th place on the 2008 money list through her earnings at the events she played in through sponsor exemptions. When she failed to reach this goal, she entered an LPGA Sectional Qualifying Tournament. At the tournament, held from September 16 through 19 at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California, she finished tied for 4th place. This was sufficient to advance her to the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament held in Daytona Beach, Florida in December, 2008. During the Final Qualifying Tournament, Wie finished in a tie for 7th place to make her eligible to play full time on the LPGA Tour in 2009.

In Wie's next two tournaments, the J Golf Phoenix LPGA International and the Kraft Nabisco Championship, she struggled to make the cut, finishing on the cut line after the second round both times. She finished tied for 57th and 67th respectively in the two events. In the Kraft Nabisco, a major on the LPGA Tour, she shot a score of 81 in both the second and third rounds. In mid-April, Wie traveled to Korea to play in a LPGA of Korea event, the Lotte Mart Open, for the first time. She finished tied for 36, earning $1,536. She spent the next two months playing in every available LPGA tournament, with results ranging from a tie for 3rd at the Sybase Classic to a tie for 54th at the State Farm Classic, the same event at which she was disqualified in 2008 for failing to sign her scorecard. At the second major of the year, the LPGA Championship, she finished tied for 23rd, her best finish in a major since 2006. During this tournament she also scored her first recorded hole-in-one as a professional. The day after the end of the LPGA Championship, Wie participated in a sectional qualifying tournament for the 2009 U.S. Women's Open to be held during the first week in July. She joined 110 players at the Rockville, Maryland site, one of several sites around the country set up for qualifying purposes on that day. Wie missed qualifying after shoot rounds of 70 and 74. In August, at Rich Harvest Farms golf course in Sugar Grove, Illinois, Wie was a captain's pick for the United States team in Solheim Cup competition. She finished the tournament with a 3-0-1 performance in four matches.