Golf: Wie Reminded to Focus on the Present

Michelle Wie's immediate aspirations lie here in the women's British Open, which starts today, but her loftiest ambition rests 26 miles down the A565 and through the Mersey Tunnel, at Royal Liverpool, where the men's equivalent will be played next July.

"Oh, definitely," she said yesterday when asked if she intended to attempt qualification for the 2006 Open. "I played a practice round there last year and I thought the course was great. I'd love to be there next year for the Open."

Obstacles remain between golf's oldest major tournament and the game's youngest phenomenon, not least the pending issue of a new entry form for the Open which will allow women to enter. But the fact that a 15-year-old schoolgirl from Hawaii can declare her intention to play on the stage offered by the Open and be taken seriously is both a signal that the game's age-old sex barriers may be breaking down and a tribute to that schoolgirl's prodigious talent.

Wie is greatness in waiting, as a little time spent watching her hit balls on the practice range makes all too obvious. Her swing is honey sweet - a long, smooth and powerful motion which produces an aerodynamic ball flight to gladden the eye of the most demanding rocket scientist. Even her so-called weakness, her short game, appears to have been resolved, as recent results suggest. In six LPGA events this year she has finished second three times. She also came within two shots of making the cut in the PGA tour's John Deere Classic.

She followed that up with another startling performance in the USGA's public links championship, where she reached the quarter-finals in a field populated by some of the best male amateurs in the US. Three more victories at the Publinx and she would have had an automatic invitation to next year's Masters.

All that is missing from the teenager's stellar resumé is a meaningful victory on one of the game's bigger stages, such as here this week. "I am not content with the fact that I have come so close to winning this year," she said.

She is not the only one, it seems. Wie may have captured the public imagination but the hype that has accompanied each impressive step is beginning to grate on those in the women's game who look on as other players are required to walk in the shadow of her media coverage.

After all, as Laura Davies pointed out yesterday, we are living in the era of one of the greatest women players in history, Annika Sorenstam. "Michelle is a great player. Like everyone else I am a golf fan and I think what she is doing is very exciting. But if I was her I think I be more concerned about trying to beat Annika, about trying to be the best women's golfer, before worrying about all that other stuff."

Normally the always forthright Davies could be described as an exception on the women's circuit - one of the politer arenas in the sporting world - but on the subject of Wie's career path she was simply stating what many of her peers believe. Nancy Lopez, who will captain the US team in this year's Solheim Cup, is another who has suggested that rather than taking on the men the teenager should concentrate on beating the likes of Sorenstam.

Others argue that Wie has a responsibility to help promote the women's game, and that means playing in their events. "I don't feel any obligation at all [to promote women's golf]," she said yesterday. "I am not the commissioner. I am just doing what I want to do."

Sorenstam, who leads Wie in professional career victories by 74 to zero, is content to keep her comments as straight as her drives. "No, I am just glad that people are taking an interest in women's golf," she said when asked if she ever got bored with answering questions about the teenager. "She's a great player. I think she's the future - a very talented young player."

But if Sorenstam is happy to compliment Wie, the 18-year-old Paula Creamer, a long-time rival, can barely bring herself to utter her name in public. "Annika," she said yesterday when asked to identify her main rivals here. Could she perhaps name any rival who was closer to her own age? "No. I pretty much go out there and play within myself and play the golf course really."

Creamer turned professional this year and has won two LPGA tour events. Both she and Wie insist they are "great friends" but it is safe to assume each would love nothing more than to beat the other come Sunday, although it is hard to see the winner of that contest going on to be the greatest woman player of the era.