Here are the seven LPGA Tour events she played in 2004, and her finish in each:
Safeway International - T19
*Kraft Nabisco - 4th
Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill - T12
*U.S. Women's Open - T13
Evian Masters - T33
Wendy's Championship - T6
Samsung World Championship - T13
That's two Top 10s (including one major, denoted by the asterisks), four more Top 20s (including a second major), only one finish outside the Top 20 (and even that was a 33rd, in the upper half of the field).
A golfer must finish in the Top 90 on the LPGA Tour to earn her tour card for the following year. What if Michelle Wie had been playing professionally in 2004, at age 14? Some quick calculations show she would have earned $267,247 (this figure is a very good estimate based on last year's tournament payouts).
At 14, and playing in only seven tournaments, Wie would have finished 44th on the money list - better than Brandie Burton, Dorothy Delasin, Jill McGill, Janice Moodie, Dawn Coe-Jones, Kelli Kuehne and Sophie Gustafson. Playing in only seven tournaments, she would have earned her tour card for 2005.
Let's extrapolate. Let's take her accomplishments in those seven tournaments and see where she would have finished had she played 20 events. In 20 events, Wie's imaginary 2004 earnings project to $763,562 - she would have finished in the Top 10 on the money list! Ahead of Karrie Webb, Jennifer Rosales, Se Ri Pak, Juli Inkster, Rachel Teske and Laura Diaz.
Twenty tournaments is actually fewer than most pros played last year. But Wie was just 14, after all - maybe fatigue would have set in, maybe she would have missed a cut or two, maybe she would have played fewer tournaments. Let's adjust our projections. Let's take away a full one-third of her imaginary 2004 earnings. Even with this adjustment, Wie's projected total of $511,586 would have placed her 22nd on the LPGA Tour money list.
Of course, these extrapolations are all just thought experiments. What's not just a thought experiment is that in only seven tournaments, at age 14, Wie would have earned enough to finish in the Top 50.
That's an extraordinary accomplishment, making Wie completely deserving of the attention.
Let's look at it another way: average earnings per start. Using our estimate of what Wie would have earned as a professional in her seven starts last year, Wie's average earnings per start work out to $38,178.
In 2004, only six LPGA veterans out of the Top 20 on the money list beat that figure: Annika Sorenstam, Meg Mallon, Grace Park, Lorena Ochoa, Christie Kerr and Karen Stupples. Wie would have ranked 7th. At age 14.
But ignore her age for a moment. Even a 25-year-old or 35-year-old on the LPGA Tour would be considered a star if she finished in the Top 10 on the money list and Top 7 in earnings-per-start, as our projections show Wie could have done.
Take out the age and the projections. Any golfer turning pro - say, a 22-year-old out of college - who earned her card in just seven events would be considered quite accomplished.
And when you do factor in her age, the accomplishments of Michelle Wie seem truly phenomenal. That's because they are. They're unprecedented.
What does all this mean?
Wie has plenty of growing up to do, plenty of work to do on her game. It may all lead to a professional career that matches her teen-year accomplishments in its "wow" factor. Or she might crash and burn, and never win a single LPGA Tour event.
Nobody knows what the future holds for Wie. But even if her future holds nothing but frustration, and she fails to win a single professional golf tournament, such a fate would have no bearing whatsoever on what Wie is accomplishing right now. It can't, because all we have is right now.
And right now, Michelle Wie is already a great player doing remarkable things.
We can't know what her future holds, but as we did above, we can make a guess based on all that we know about her. My guess? Believe the hype.
