TourIQ
Jun 4, 2007, 02:32 PM
GOLFWEEK Commentary: http://www.golfweek.com/commentaries/hoggard_060107
http://a9.g.akamai.net/f/9/34087/5m/turnstile.download.akamai.com/34087/images/ourtake_mugs/Rex%20Hoggard.jpgRex Hoggard
Email Rex Hoggard (rHoggard@golfweek.com?subject=Comments on An open letter)
Read more from Rex Hoggard (http://www.golfweek.com/author/Rex%20Hoggard/)
An open letter
June 1, 2007
Clair Peterson
Tournament Director, John Deere Classic
Silvis, Ill.
Dear Clair,
A colleague dubbed you “one of the best tournament directors in the business.” And since I find those who labor to stage quality events at the highest level to be among the game’s most dedicated and genuine types, I hoped you might listen to reason.
The time has come to pull the plug on the Michelle Wie madness on the PGA Tour.
Not because she was two holes away May 31 at the Ginn Tribute from a Michael Irvin (the former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver who wore No. 88). Not because she has failed to break 70 in her last 16 rounds, including two LPGA Tour events. Not because she finished last in consecutive weeks on the European Tour and the PGA Tour, and was next to last at the Casio World Open in Japan last year.
No, it’s time to pull the plug because it is what’s best for the game, for the Quad Cities and, most importantly, Wie.
Last week, shortly after you’d handed the Hawaiian teen that coveted sponsor exemption, you said she, “attracts a tremendous amount of interest among traditional and nontraditional golf fans, which helps broaden the game’s appeal, especially among young people.”
So do bearded ladies and third-turn pile ups, but I wouldn’t suggest circling the TPC Deere Run with a 2-mile oval nor planting a circus tent adjacent the first tee.
Wie may bring new fans out to the ballpark, but what are they learning when they get there? That mediocrity, no matter how high-minded or pure the motives, is a worthy pursuit?
Maybe Wie returned to early from a wrist injury that has sidelined her for most of 2007. Maybe the ailment was to blame for a first round at the Ginn that included a single birdie, seven pars, five bogeys, a double bogey, a triple bogey and a 10 on the par-5 third. Maybe the prospect of shooting an 88 – which, under LPGA rules for non-members like Wie, would have all but denied her access to the ladies circuit for the rest of the year – prompted her hasty withdrawal.
But while Wie wrestled with the possibility of the LPGA’s Rule 88, Clair you are now left to deal with a complicated Catch 22.
I have no doubt you are trying to do what’s best for the John Deere Classic. My fear, however, is that in your zealous pursuit of a marquee attraction you are adding to a litany of bad decisions that could likely be hurting both Wie and the John Deere.
Even within Wie’s own tightly packed camp the PGA Tour experiment is being viewed as day-old bread.
Early last month Wie’s swing coach David Leadbetter told an Australian golf writer that his star pupil was, at least temporally, going to shelve her gender bridging campaign.
“She hasn’t got any PGA Tour events planned at the moment,” Leadbetter said May 4. “She’s going to commit herself to the LPGA and play a number of events, and next year she’ll probably take up membership.”
On Tuesday at the Ginn Tribute, Wie claimed Leadbetter had been “misquoted.” But while Wie was swinging her way to a WD on Thursday, Leadbetter stood by his comments.
“It wasn’t a case of misquoting,” he said. “I pretty much said verbatim I felt she was focusing (on) LPGA at this point in time (and) she wasn’t playing any PGA Tour events, and that was the case.”
Perhaps this type of drama is a hit on Wisteria Lane, but not on the PGA Tour.
Even Tour players – who have, at least publicly, been supportive of the teen’s PGA Tour pursuits – have become Wie weary. Retief Goosen, one of the game’s most non-confrontational quotes and hardly prone to hyperbole, fired a cautionary shot.
“The players in general feel it is not right,” said Goosen, competing this week at the Wales Open. “If she qualifies to play in an event then fine, but there are youngsters and good players coming up who could have taken that spot and broken through.
“We all know with her playing in the men’s events that she is not going to get anywhere, so I’m not really sure what she is trying to achieve.”
But above all, Clair, the sponsor exemptions should end if, for no other reason, than to save Wie from herself and her handlers. Her foray into men’s golf has done little for her confidence, if not her game. In fact, for a player who was showered with Tiger-like endorsement money when she turned pro in late 2005 she is starting to sound like a lamb.
“I’m just so grateful to be out here again,” Wie said Tuesday. “My expectations is to play well . . . I’m not really sure how well I can play because I’ve been out so long.”
Woods shows up at his first child’s ultrasound looking “to win,” and is never “just so grateful” to be anywhere.
There was a time, not that long ago, that Wie had the same “second sucks” mentality as Woods. When she became the youngest winner of a U.S. Golf Association championship for adults at the 2003 U.S Women’s Public Links. When she captivated the golf world in 2004 when she narrowly missed the cut at the Sony Open.
But now we see a timid player, slowed by injury and doubt, and a carnival that makes the Bronx Zoo look like the New York Library.
Hopefully, Wie rushed home to Hawaii for her high school graduation ceremony. She planned, before the quick Carolina exit, to have her friends sneak a life-sized cardboard cut-out of her into the ceremony and bring it to the stage when they announced her name.
Perhaps you should borrow the unused cut-out, prop it up on the first tee for all to see and give the sponsor exemption to someone who deserves it.
Sincerely,
Rex, a concerned golf fan
Posted: 6/1/2007
http://a9.g.akamai.net/f/9/34087/5m/turnstile.download.akamai.com/34087/images/ourtake_mugs/Rex%20Hoggard.jpgRex Hoggard
Email Rex Hoggard (rHoggard@golfweek.com?subject=Comments on An open letter)
Read more from Rex Hoggard (http://www.golfweek.com/author/Rex%20Hoggard/)
An open letter
June 1, 2007
Clair Peterson
Tournament Director, John Deere Classic
Silvis, Ill.
Dear Clair,
A colleague dubbed you “one of the best tournament directors in the business.” And since I find those who labor to stage quality events at the highest level to be among the game’s most dedicated and genuine types, I hoped you might listen to reason.
The time has come to pull the plug on the Michelle Wie madness on the PGA Tour.
Not because she was two holes away May 31 at the Ginn Tribute from a Michael Irvin (the former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver who wore No. 88). Not because she has failed to break 70 in her last 16 rounds, including two LPGA Tour events. Not because she finished last in consecutive weeks on the European Tour and the PGA Tour, and was next to last at the Casio World Open in Japan last year.
No, it’s time to pull the plug because it is what’s best for the game, for the Quad Cities and, most importantly, Wie.
Last week, shortly after you’d handed the Hawaiian teen that coveted sponsor exemption, you said she, “attracts a tremendous amount of interest among traditional and nontraditional golf fans, which helps broaden the game’s appeal, especially among young people.”
So do bearded ladies and third-turn pile ups, but I wouldn’t suggest circling the TPC Deere Run with a 2-mile oval nor planting a circus tent adjacent the first tee.
Wie may bring new fans out to the ballpark, but what are they learning when they get there? That mediocrity, no matter how high-minded or pure the motives, is a worthy pursuit?
Maybe Wie returned to early from a wrist injury that has sidelined her for most of 2007. Maybe the ailment was to blame for a first round at the Ginn that included a single birdie, seven pars, five bogeys, a double bogey, a triple bogey and a 10 on the par-5 third. Maybe the prospect of shooting an 88 – which, under LPGA rules for non-members like Wie, would have all but denied her access to the ladies circuit for the rest of the year – prompted her hasty withdrawal.
But while Wie wrestled with the possibility of the LPGA’s Rule 88, Clair you are now left to deal with a complicated Catch 22.
I have no doubt you are trying to do what’s best for the John Deere Classic. My fear, however, is that in your zealous pursuit of a marquee attraction you are adding to a litany of bad decisions that could likely be hurting both Wie and the John Deere.
Even within Wie’s own tightly packed camp the PGA Tour experiment is being viewed as day-old bread.
Early last month Wie’s swing coach David Leadbetter told an Australian golf writer that his star pupil was, at least temporally, going to shelve her gender bridging campaign.
“She hasn’t got any PGA Tour events planned at the moment,” Leadbetter said May 4. “She’s going to commit herself to the LPGA and play a number of events, and next year she’ll probably take up membership.”
On Tuesday at the Ginn Tribute, Wie claimed Leadbetter had been “misquoted.” But while Wie was swinging her way to a WD on Thursday, Leadbetter stood by his comments.
“It wasn’t a case of misquoting,” he said. “I pretty much said verbatim I felt she was focusing (on) LPGA at this point in time (and) she wasn’t playing any PGA Tour events, and that was the case.”
Perhaps this type of drama is a hit on Wisteria Lane, but not on the PGA Tour.
Even Tour players – who have, at least publicly, been supportive of the teen’s PGA Tour pursuits – have become Wie weary. Retief Goosen, one of the game’s most non-confrontational quotes and hardly prone to hyperbole, fired a cautionary shot.
“The players in general feel it is not right,” said Goosen, competing this week at the Wales Open. “If she qualifies to play in an event then fine, but there are youngsters and good players coming up who could have taken that spot and broken through.
“We all know with her playing in the men’s events that she is not going to get anywhere, so I’m not really sure what she is trying to achieve.”
But above all, Clair, the sponsor exemptions should end if, for no other reason, than to save Wie from herself and her handlers. Her foray into men’s golf has done little for her confidence, if not her game. In fact, for a player who was showered with Tiger-like endorsement money when she turned pro in late 2005 she is starting to sound like a lamb.
“I’m just so grateful to be out here again,” Wie said Tuesday. “My expectations is to play well . . . I’m not really sure how well I can play because I’ve been out so long.”
Woods shows up at his first child’s ultrasound looking “to win,” and is never “just so grateful” to be anywhere.
There was a time, not that long ago, that Wie had the same “second sucks” mentality as Woods. When she became the youngest winner of a U.S. Golf Association championship for adults at the 2003 U.S Women’s Public Links. When she captivated the golf world in 2004 when she narrowly missed the cut at the Sony Open.
But now we see a timid player, slowed by injury and doubt, and a carnival that makes the Bronx Zoo look like the New York Library.
Hopefully, Wie rushed home to Hawaii for her high school graduation ceremony. She planned, before the quick Carolina exit, to have her friends sneak a life-sized cardboard cut-out of her into the ceremony and bring it to the stage when they announced her name.
Perhaps you should borrow the unused cut-out, prop it up on the first tee for all to see and give the sponsor exemption to someone who deserves it.
Sincerely,
Rex, a concerned golf fan
Posted: 6/1/2007