Wie's driving

[AUDuffer]

PLEASE keep this on topic

Okay, I'm going to post this once and hopefully people that want to be a jackWord not allowed just move on because I'd like this to be some kind of serious discussion here. I don't want to have some kind of topic that degenerates into bashing because it's not what I'm thinking about...

Now, I was looking at the article on espn.com about her missing the cut and the same thing after her first round was mentioned by her--her driving was horrible and letting her down. Now it seems to me that during women's events she doesn't have that problem. Could it be that she's trying to hit the ball too hard and therefore her accuracy is hurting? I just find it interesting that during LPGA events she does pretty well in that department (or at least from what I see--not necessarily on stats. Thoughts--mature thoughts, please...

[nikemike]

Great point and you're probably spot on. Many times I have gotten out of my routine playing with people who hit longer than me. This in turn puts pressure on the rest of your game and just makes for poor results.

[thusgone]

I read a similar thread on this topic somewhere else, and one of the posters said that the LPGA sets up its courses to maximize the players' driving distance. According to this guy (who claimed some special knowledge, don't recall the source), they shave the fwys on the course the ladies play. He pointed to the difference in Wie's driving numbers in men's vs. women's events in the same year. I actually beleive that might be true, given the drivers the women play. I think Gulbis and Creamer both play 7.5* drivers, which leads me to believ they are set up to maximize roll.

 

I also think that she is going backwards in a lot of categories in her game. My opinion is that she is pressing too hard, but I'm just a fan and a golfer. I don't claim any special info hookup. Does anyone remember whether Annika's driving distance was less than her LPGA numbers from the same season when she played in the PGA event at Colonial?

 

Oh, and good luck on keeping this fron degenerating. This topic really brings out some strong feelings among golfers!

[Mr Mizuno]

I would agree with you. Once I played with a guy who is or was considerd "the longest" in our club. Well it was a dry day, my game was on, so I hit hit past him a couple of times, that hurt his confidence I guess, so he tried to hit it even harder and his shots got even more wayward...

[mat562]

'Yes' is the answer. at least in my opinion.

 

Wie should stick to the LPGA Tour (or other events as she deems appropriate)

 

She is aremarkable talent - not perhaps in the way of a female Tiger Woods - and will undoubtedly emerge as one of the pre-eminent talents of the next couple of decades. On the women's tour.

 

It seems to me that she is simply in the wrong place, and is receiving bad advice (or making bad decisions) regarding her schedule. Sponsors are understandably keen to showcase her in men's events but she clearly isn't up to it.

 

She seems, when playing in LPGA events, to be precisely where she should be: A phonomenal talent who hits sparkling shots and occasionally makes her contomporaies look ordinary without necessarily having the maturity to dominate due to her age and relative inexperience.

 

Mens Tour? She's outclassed by her opponents and outgunned by everyone on courses that are simply too long for her. Hence the poor record which would embarrass me or any other low handicap amateur. The driving issue, I feel, is simply evidence of this; trying to alter her swing and game to fit.

 

Please Michelle. Play the LPGA and let us\see you perform as you should. And win. you're a pretty girl, but noone looks good shooting in the 80s...

[DemolitionMan]

How about she is just going through a bad spell with her driver, nothing more, nothing less? The rest is just the media and golf forums blowing it completely out of proportion.

 

There could be an element of trying to hard, certainly the pressure and stress level are factors. Does it really matter? MW has big time edorsement contracts, her future is secure, even if it is not in golf. But I don't see anyone crying/clamoring over PGA Pros who drove the ball terribly all year and ended up not being able to secure their tour card for '07.

 

I don't think LPGA courses are consistently setup to produce longer driving distances than PGA courses. If anything, it's the opposite. Some of those PGA courses have the ball rolling forever which is why the players look to maximize carry and therefore control. The longest drives I have ever hit were at courses hosting a PGA event and playing the same setup.

 

Many LPGA events do not have the glamor/budget to warrant tip top course conditioning. They probably uses the white spray paint for G.U.R. a lot more on the LPGA.

[edwelly]

I think you are correct. I think she is trying way too hard. If I were in her shoes, I would be trying too hard as well. There are so many people saying she can’t compete with the men and I am one of the them. Is she a better golfer than me? Hells yeah, but she is not ready for the men just yet. Even though she has not won on the LPGA, she has had quite a good year and I think that speaks volumes for her and her game. But every time she does well in the LPGA, the is shadowed by a horrible showing at a men’s tournament.

 

I know I am in the super small minority but I feel bad for her. I feel that if it were up SOLELY to her, she would stick to the LPGA. I ‘think’ that most if not all of the men’s events she has/is playing in is due to sponsor pressure. If she continues to do poorly on the men’s circuit, people are going to ‘not want to see her play’ thus causing the opposite effect on what Nike and others had hoped for. Sadly, if things keep going to way they are going for her, I think she will end up being celebrity in the golfing world instead of a great player.

[lars]

interesting topic. i have talked to an ex-pga friend of mine and his description of a PGA setup was, super firm & narrow fairways, long rough, hard/fast greens w/ the 4 most difficult pin positions possible.

 

it is probably a combination of the longer PGA setup, narrower fairways that put pressure on her to try and hit it harder and guide it down the narrows. of course, i have seen her be "wild" on the lpga too.

[DemolitionMan]

 

I know I am in the super small minority but I feel bad for her. I feel that if it were up SOLELY to her, she would stick to the LPGA. I ‘think’ that most if not all of the men’s events she has/is playing in is due to sponsor pressure. If she continues to do poorly on the men’s circuit, people are going to ‘not want to see her play’ thus causing the opposite effect on what Nike and others had hoped for. Sadly, if things keep going to way they are going for her, I think she will end up being celebrity in the golfing world instead of a great player.

 

Ever been to a PGA event? Take a look around. A ton of people go to these events and they do not have the first clue about scoring. They are there to see people hit a golf ball in a way that they can't; including a 17 yr old girl who does the same. I would estimate that around two-thirds of the revenue tied to a golf event comes from those who do not get caught up in things like driving accuracy, GIRs, putts per round, etc...Most of the public do not share the same elitist views you find here.

 

Her score has little affect on popularity and attendance of the event, all she has to do is show up, smile, and sign some autographs. That's why sponsors still consider the invite.

 

Some people should just accept MW being in the occasional men's event as one of those things about golf they may not like and focus on what they do like. Think about it, the more you rant, the more you end up supporting the very thing the sponsors want. A bunch of whining about a 17 yr old on a website will change nothing.

[ZBigStick]

PGA fairways are set up super narrow. Along with the width they are firm which alows for imperfectly hit tee shots to run through into the rough. Phil, Vijay, Tiger et al have the stregth to muscle it from the rough and generally have a shorter distance to the green. All other sucessful PGA pros who are more in Wie's driving catagory, find fairways. Furyk, Funk, and Durant don't mess around with the junk and pair their games with impecible short games.

 

LPGA courses feature wider landing areas, shorter rough and don't use the toughest hole locations for all of the holes as the PGA tour has begun to do.

 

Michelle's driving distance will increase at the Sony due to the amount of run the couse has and some holes hitting with the trade winds.

 

How many drivers and shafts has she tried in the last three years? She is up there with many on this site. ;)

 

Find a weapon, stick with it. Find the fairway. Apply for the LPGA exemption and find a home on a tour. Find your wins. Find your legacy. Right now it is finishing second in women's tournaments and missing cuts in men's. :no:

[HCEG1]

Mark Brooks and Brad Faxon are considered too short to be a force on the PGA tour these days. They both hit it more than 20 yards longer than Wie has averaged in her last 2 men's tournaments according to official PGA statistics.

[smarshal75]

I think the bottom line is that there way to much pressure on this young lady. I could only imagine how hard it is for her to keep her game together at a PGA event, knowing: a) the men don't want her there; b) she has to absolutely crush the ball with consistency because the men play longer; and c) the courses are set-up to penalize any deficiency in accuracy off the tee.

 

You add these things up and I think she ends up mentally shot and trying to hard.

[mmckinleyd]

Guys, she is not out there to win the tournament. She is value added to the sponsors and the tour weather she hits it 245 or 295. People tune in and log on no matter what anyone says. I don't think anyone that knows anything about golf actually believes she will ever compete with anyone on the PGA tour. She a talented young girl, who happens to be quite pretty, that has huge marketing appeal. Just look how emotional people are on both sides of the topic. In the end, she is making a lot of people a ton of money and doing quite well herself. Whether she's happy floundering in last place and what affect that has on the person she has yet to become, is another story and another debate. Golf is a game of confidence and it appears she has lost most of hers. Michelle is told where to go and when to tee it up, her management team and father should bare much more responsibility than she in this matter.

[golfernut78]

i haven't looked up the stats, but is her driving letting her down because of lack of distance? lack of control? or both?

 

i agree with many of the above comments, that lpga and pga courses are set up extremely different (fairway width, fairway cut, etc....) and also the added preasure of trying to keep up.

 

like has been said in many other posts, she did not compete heavily in junior golf. she needs to focus on the lpga tour and winning on the lpga tour before trying the "stunt" of playing a pga event. imo, she is huring herself and her game by playing in the pga events at this point. win at your level and then go to the next level. you can't walk without first crawling.

[MGB]

I must agree. Winning is a skill that's learned and that's a lesson she's not going to learn on the men's tour. Also, she needs to pick her spots if she's going to compete with the men. When Annika crossed over, it was at a course at which she felt she could compete with the men. That thought process seems to be absent with Wie.

[pm hacker]

After watching some of the videos that I have of her swing from both the Men's & LPGA tournaments that she has played in this year, she is trying to swing 100+% with her tee shots while competing against the men while has a better rhythmic swing when competing against her own gender. That being said, along with the tougher course conditions that the men play has contributed to her horrible driving stats.

 

There are other viable contributing factors to why she is playing so poorly such as Leadbetter, lack of the "killer instinct", sad excuses, poor management from Team Wie, setting low goals, etc....and the list goes on.

 

I sincerely wish her the best of luck and hope that she finds her "game" again before teeing it up against the men in 2007. ;)

[Hungsolo]

I read a similar thread on this topic somewhere else, and one of the posters said that the LPGA sets up its courses to maximize the players' driving distance. According to this guy (who claimed some special knowledge, don't recall the source), they shave the fwys on the course the ladies play. He pointed to the difference in Wie's driving numbers in men's vs. women's events in the same year. I actually beleive that might be true, given the drivers the women play. I think Gulbis and Creamer both play 7.5* drivers, which leads me to believ they are set up to maximize roll.

 

I also think that she is going backwards in a lot of categories in her game. My opinion is that she is pressing too hard, but I'm just a fan and a golfer. I don't claim any special info hookup. Does anyone remember whether Annika's driving distance was less than her LPGA numbers from the same season when she played in the PGA event at Colonial?

 

Oh, and good luck on keeping this fron degenerating. This topic really brings out some strong feelings among golfers!

 

 

Gulbis and Creamer both played 8.5 drivers at the beginning of the year, don't know about now.

 

I agree though, the course setup seems to be a great deal of her distance.

[mmckinleyd]

Back to her driving, I think it's quite troubling for her that half the people on this board can fly it 50 by her. My ss is 123-127 without tricking it out, 178-183 ball speed and 2200 spin rate. Not sure how 107 with ? ball speed = flying it 300, but leave that to her PR team. I think when I was her age I thought I would be dominating the men's tour by 25 also, the fact is in my mid 30's I can't dominate my club championship against a bunch of fat drunk Wall Street guys. I think we should all remember how brash we were in our youth before we burn her at the stake. Be that as it may, she draws huge crowds and sponsors lover her, for now. There are plenty of guys who get sponsors exemptions every week and never make the cut. I mean, and I'm going to hell for saying this, but Arnold Palmer was firing it in the mid eighties for more than a decade and drawing larger crowds than the leaders at pga events. The fact is, people didn't care what he shot they just wanted to watch him play. I think the same is true for Michelle Wie. While you might say Palmer "earned" that right, the fact remains he had no business being out there on a competative level. We might care that she claims to bomb it 325 and only hits it 265, but there are a million people who could care less.

[Rabidpenguin45]

Its probably just her trying to prove to us that she can make it on the mens events, if she hits it an extra five yards, i think she will feel accomplished

[AUDuffer]

Guys (and gals), I might have worded the question a little poorly. I guess what I'm really talking about is more or less her accuracy than distance. I don't think she could really get up there with the top-level guys in terms of distance. I think with any of us (even Tiger) would admit we suffer big time in terms of accuracy when we try to swing out of our shoes. Is it a psychological thing maybe? Does she have a mental coach?

[Rabidpenguin45]

she seems to have coaches for everything, probably has to take a penmenship class weekly, so she can sign her contracts neatly

[AUDuffer]

she seems to have coaches for everything, probably has to take a penmenship class weekly, so she can sign her contracts neatly

 

What does that last part have to do with this topic? How "junior" of a junior boomer are you?

[Rabidpenguin45]

lol i dont know, i'm tired, cut me some slack, but back on topic, i dont know if its just phycological, or not.

[pitchmaster1224]

she needs to leave Leadbetter she is too robotic with her swing and has no feel in regards to the short game...we have seen a few examples lately of guys leaving Leadbetter and then playing some of the best golf of their career

[gjones77]

Quite frankly, I just don't think she's having fun when she plays anymore

[PhilSA]

I have to go with Sergio Garcia about Wie.

 

He claims she simply doesn't hit the ball high enough to compete in the PGA.

 

My guess is that she tries to increase the launch angle and loose accuracy in return for that.

 

All the other said about Lead etc. I fully agree with.

[primetimer006]

the real truth is she shouldnt be playing with the guys. end of story.

[wjdpar1]

I've changed my mind about MW. I don't feel she should be trying to compete on the PGA tour if she is really interested in becoming a great golfer. She appears to be losing her confidence and her performances are getting more dismal.

 

I agree about her trying too hard off the tee to keep up, but a bigger concern is her putting IMO. Unless that gets better, she won't be a factor on any tour.

[skinnamon]

i agree with the statement above, her putting needs to be addressed. she takes the same approach to putting as she does with her full swing way to technical. shes hurting her game by playing poorly in events she cant compete in. go learn to win, before you go try and prove something you cant

[mr_divots]

Now, I was looking at the article on espn.com about her missing the cut and the same thing after her first round was mentioned by her--her driving was horrible and letting her down. Now it seems to me that during women's events she doesn't have that problem. Could it be that she's trying to hit the ball too hard and therefore her accuracy is hurting? I just find it interesting that during LPGA events she does pretty well in that department (or at least from what I see--not necessarily on stats. Thoughts--mature thoughts, please...

 

I think you're spot on. I also think she is playing on a less-than-part-time basis for a professional golfer considering she is supposedly still in high school. I think once she can get on the LPGA full time she will be fine. But all the stopping and starting in her schedule can't be good. Plus, she seems to switch equipment an awful lot.

 

There doesn't seem to be a lot of consistency in her golfing world right now in any aspect, aside from capitalizing on media opportunities.