Michelle Wie is the female equivalent of Tiger Woods. Both are of Asian descent, both excelled at golf at an extremely young age, both are charming and attractive. But until this week, only one of them had won a PGA sanctioned golf tournament.
Michelle Wie, who at the ripe old age of 20 has ten years of professional golf experience under her belt, won her first LPGA tournament this weekend, beating rival Paula Creamer by two strokes at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational. Now, unless you’re a hardcore LPGA fan (and let’s face it, what other kind of LPGA fan is there?), you’ve never heard of Paula Creamer, Lorena Ochoa, or her invitational. And that’s OK, because you have heard of Michelle Wie.
After her big win, Michelle was showered with beer by her Solheim Cup teammates (I know, you’ve never heard of the Solheim Cup, either). Presumably, the 20 year old didn’t accidentally imbibe any of the sudsy shower, otherwise she’d be in risk of arrest for underage drinking.
A Michelle Wie victory is good for the LPGA, just as Tiger Woods is good for the PGA. Partly because she was such a young phenom, but mostly because she’s attractive, Wie has captured the attention of the public at large who generally couldn’t care any less about women’s golf. Consider that this is Wie’s first win in 66 tournaments, then try to name the winner of any of the other 65.
While the LPGA can’t hope for her to bring as much attention to women’s golf as Tiger did to the men’s version, Michelle Wie indisputably is the rock star of ladies’ golf (inasmuch as ladies’ golf can ever have a rock star – it’s still ladies’ golf, after all). If she can keep winning, she is going to be very, very good for the sport.
