Stanford alum Michelle Wie Looking to Kick Start Season at Swinging Skirts
April 22, 2015
It hasn’t exactly been the kind of start Michelle Wie was looking for.
A year after ringing up 13 Top-10 finishes and two wins, including the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, the Stanford alum has started slowly in 2015.
Coming into this week’s Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic at Lake Merced Golf Club, Wie is at No.49 on the LPGA money list, with her best finish being a T-11 at last week’s LOTTE Championship in Hawaii. Prior to that, her best finish was a T-24 at January’s COATES Golf Championship.
Throughout March, she battled strep throat and a sinus infection.
A return to the Bay Area could be just the thing to get her back on track.
“This is definitely something I look forward to all year,” said Wie during a press conference. “Coming back to the Bay Area, stopped by Stanford yesterday for a quick couple of seconds. Just feels so good to be back.”
While the ailments that throttled her in game March are gone, Wie said she’s still fighting one of her toughest foes—herself.
“I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself,” Wie said. “I just got to look back and enjoy myself. I think that’s what I did a good job of last week. I kind of just let everything happen. That’s kind of the game plan for this week as well.”
With her first major win in the rear view mirror, the 6-foot tall Wie doesn’t lack confidence. The still just 25-year-old, however, also knows that every day on the course is a different day.
“It’s nice to know that I can win a major. Now that I did it once you get a taste for it and you want to do it again and again,” Wie said. “But you also don’t really think about the past or how well you did in the past. What matters is what you do this week and what you do on every hole.”
Wie is no stranger to the ups and downs of professional golf. When she was still a teenager, she was already being called the Tiger Woods of women’s golf. Not long before she won the U.S. Women’s Open, she was struggling to keep her LPGA Tour playing card.
The journey isn’t lost on Wie.
“I think if I had to describe it, it definitely wasn’t boring. It was very exciting,” Wie said. “I feel like I have a lot more to show, and I’m going to keep working hard.”
Starting with this week’s Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic.
“Last year I think I set out and really did achieve a really big goal of mine, which was to be consistent. Obviously this year—you know that’s what the game of golf is,” Wie said. “Sometimes you just don’t play as well as you want to. But I do feel like I’m improving. I feel like I’ve been consistently getting better.”
–Jerry Stewart
