Michelle Wie career summary 2006

Career Summary So Far

Year by Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

2006 - 16 years old

- Wie opened her 2006 campaign for the 3rd year in a row, at the pga tour’s Sony Open. After shooting a very disappointing first round of 79, she came out in the 2nd round and shot a very impressive 68, her best pga round to date. Although she had previously shot 68 at the 2004 Sony Open, the 68 shot in the 2006 was a relatively much better score because:
- the 2004 Sony Open her 68 was bettered by 40 players.
- At the 2006 Sony Open, her 68 was only bettered by 11 players.

- Wie took that impressive play to the Field Open, an lpga event in Hawaii, where she finished just one shot off the lead. This was one of her first experiences contending for an lpga title. While she had many high finishes on the lpga tour in 2005, most of them had the situation where the leader was well ahead, so she hadn’t really been in contention to win most of those 2005 titles.

- Her 2nd lpga event of 2006 was at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, where one of the most dramatic and exiting finishes of recent majors happened. There were 4 players in contention coming down the stretch. Wie looked to have timed her move perfectly when she knocked an iron stiff by the hole at the 16th hole for a tap in biride to take the lead. However, right after that, Karrie Webb holed out with a wedge from the fairway on 18, to record an eagle and thus went back ahead of Wie by 1 shot. Wie closed out with two pars and finished one shot outside the playoff.

Mens
- Wie played her first event on the Asian Tour in May 2006, the SK Telecom Open. She made history there, by becoming the first woman in 62 years to make a cut on a mens ranking tour. After shooting two excellent rounds of 70 and 69 on the par 72 course, the 3rd round was rained out, and the event was shortened from a 4 round to a 3 round event. In her last round she shot 74 to close out the event in 35th place.

- Wie next attempted to qualify for the US Open (traditionally mens). She entered her local qualifier and won that qualifier with medalist honors, making her the first woman to successfully get through local qualifying for the US Open. She then played Sectional qualifying against a field including many pga tour players. That required 36 holes in one days play, and while she played a very good 1st round of -2, it could have been even better if she had putted well. Through both rounds she consistantly set up birdie putts of about 10 to 20 feet but just didn’t convert enough of them. Frustration showed down the stretch as she lost concentration to miss a couple of short putts and finish at +1 for the 2 rounds, still a very solid performance, with an excellent tee to green game.

- Having played that Sectional on a Monday, she started an lpga major the following Thursday, the lpga championship. She didn’t show any ill effects from the 36 holes the previous Monday and put in another excellent performance to finish just two shots off the lead in 5th place.

- Three weeks later, the US Women’s Open beckoned where Wie had another top class performance at a major finishing in 3rd place.

- Her next lpga event was the Evian Masters, where Wie played very well yet again and took the lead on the back nine, only to have Karrie Webb have 3 birdies on the closing holes to beat her by one stroke.

- One week later, she played the Women's British Open, and again put in a solid performance of 26th place, which would be considered very good by most players at a major tournament, but actually looked a bit disappointing against her spate of top 5 finishes.

- Wie took holidays after the British Open and then went back to school to start her Senior Year at High School before going on the road again for two mens events, the Omega Masters and Lumber Classic. She never really found her game at either tournament, racking up high scores on the short Omega Masters course with tiny greens, and then the very long 7,500 yard Lumber Classic, which played extremely wet and made it effectively an even longer course to play.

- Back on the lpga tour, Wie played the Samsung World Championship in October where she had a 17th place finish. She tweaked her wrist there while hitting a shot off a cart path and after the event, she went against doctors advise, who told her to rest the wrist, and she decided to keep playing on.
- Her insistance to play on proved a mistake at the Casio World Open, where she again had a very disappointing performance, finishing in 2nd last place.

Read about 2007