Week in and week out, the major professional golf tours host 72-hole stroke play events. Whether it”s a major like this week”s PGA Championship or a minor like the Greater Milwaukee Open, it”s all about shooting a lower score than anyone else does that week. While stroke play predominates, avid golfers enjoy the magic of match play as well as partner events such a scrambles, better ball (fourball), and alternate shot (foursomes).
The uniqueness of match play golf in teammate formats is what makes the biennial Ryder Cup matches must-see TV. While the Presidents Cup doesn”t have the same longevity and history, it too is greatly entertaining and will be even more interesting to locals because of it being played at San Francisco”s Harding Park this coming October. Next week we”ll get another dose of team play when the American LPGA team takes on the European team in the Solheim Cup.
Contested at Rich Harvest Farms Golf Course in the Chicago suburb of Sugar Grove, the Solheim Cup features an American team of qualifiers Nicole Castrale, Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Christie Kerr, Christina Kim, Brittany Lang, Brittany Lincicome, Kristy McPherson, Morgan Pressel and Angela Stanford alongside Hall of Famer Beth Daniels” two captain”s picks, veteran Juli Inkster and 19-year-old Michelle Wie.
The European squad is captained by Alison Nicholas. Her team includes the top five ranked players on the Ladies European Tour, four golfers from the Rolex World Rankings, and three captain”s picks. Laura Davies, Tania Elosegui, Sophie Gustafson, Diana Luna and Gwladys Nocera are from the LET list. Helen Alfredsson, Maria Hjorth, Catriona Matthew and Suzann Pettersen are from the world rankings. The three captain”s choices are Becky Brewerton, Janice Moodie and Anna Nortqvist.
Just like the Ryder Cup, the Solheim participants play better ball and alternate shot on Friday and Saturday, concluding play on Sunday with 12 individual matches. The USA team has a 7-2 advantage in past Solheim matches and figures to be the odds-on favorite this time around.
One of the more intriguing stories at the Solheim Cup matches is the addition of 19-year-old Michelle Wie. Wie brings some very good things to the team play format, namely prodigious length off the tee and a tour-leading statistic of the most birdies made per round. While Wie has been on golf”s center stage for close to one decade, she is also an LPGA rookie who has yet to win on the women”s circuit. The most high-profile participant in the cup matches, this will mark the first time in her career that she will be outside the suffocating stranglehold that her parents have had upon her throughout her golfing career.
The just-released The Sure Thing: The Making and Unmaking of Golf Phenom Michelle Wie by Eric Adelson (Ballantine Books, $25) is a well-researched and strongly detailed account of the teenaged golfing savant. It is also a scorching indictment of Michelle”s parents, B.J. and Bo Wie, and the disastrous way they directed the early years of her career.
Because Michelle didn”t belong to the LPGA Tour coupled with a concocted belief that she could compete against the men on the PGA Tour, her schedule was haphazard at best. One summer, Wie played in a 36-hole U.S. Open second-stage Monday qualifier against the likes of Mark O”Meara and Davis Love III, and then had to hustle to the LPGA Championship, a major on the ladies circuit, that started on Thursday and ended on Sunday. When her father was asked about his 15-year-old daughter having to play six competitive rounds of golf over a seven-day period of time, he responded by saying, “The critics don”t understand the commercial imperatives.”
Of course, the girl certainly believed in herself. She once stated, “Tiger Woods is my favorite golfer. I think I can beat him in the near future, like when I”m 15.” Yet at the same time, her parents were chasing the almighty endorsement dollar for her, the result being burnout, heat prostration, a broken wrist and loss of respect for her among the women professionals.
As an 11-year-old, Wie was the youngest ever to qualify for the U.S. Women”s Public Links. Yet while she was greatly advanced for her age, Michelle was also a victim of a rigid family environment. Her first golf instructor, PGA teaching pro Casey Nakama, stated, “Everything hinged on Mr. Wie. He was brutal.” Michelle”s favorite movie was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She really wanted to get a puppy. Instead, she followed a rigid practice schedule assigned by her father.
Her dad also hired and fired golf instructors, agents and agencies, and battled with her handful of caddies. He even fired himself as her caddie following a number of etiquette indiscretions on his part at the 2003 U.S. Women”s Open.
All in all, Adelson”s book has one unbelievable moment after another. While next week”s Solheim Cup matches at Rich Harvest Farms will feature great golfing drama, it will also be a coming-out party of sorts for Michelle Wie.
The subtitle of the book focuses upon the making and unmaking of a golfing phenom. She”s not a little girl anymore, especially on a circuit where Morgan Pressel and Paula Creamer have excelled. Wie has also survived a tough stretch mentally intact. She”ll be on golf”s center stage next week as a professional who has earned her way to the American Solheim Cup squad. It should all make for some very fascinating golf. It”s all about the magic of match play.
