Sitting in front of a crowded room of reporters Thursday afternoon, Michelle Wie answered questions deftly, looking almost as comfortable as she does on the first tee.
"It's fun getting more attention," Wie said, smiling. "I enjoy it."
Once again, Wie handled a potentially nerve-racking situation with poise beyond her 13 years. But what is typical about Wie? She is competing in LPGA events on sponsor exemptions. She has a top-10 finish in a major championship. She's 6 feet tall with a lean, athletic build. She can drive a golf ball close to 300 yards. She will compete against men on the Nationwide Tour, the PGA's developmental tour, at the Boise Open in September. And she is the youngest golfer to win an adult US Golf Association title, capturing last weekend's Women's Amateur Public Links championship.
In Wie's case, the hype is unavoidable. She arrived here at the ShopRite LPGA. Classic, which begins Friday at the Marriott Seaview Resort's Bay Course, as the most-talked about teenage golfer since Tiger Woods. Even sooner than Woods did, Wie is facing questions about turning pro. An A-student in eighth grade in Honolulu, Wie has said she will first attend college, perhaps Stanford.
Can she really wait that long? Some people believe that her talent will not let her.
"There's no way she's going to Stanford," said Donna Caponi, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, who won 24 times on the LPGA. Tour. "That's my gut feeling. As important as it is to her parents -- who are lovely people who don't push her -- I would bet she'd turn pro before that. I just think she's going to have so much success."
Nobody doubts Wie's talent. Ask Annika Sorenstam, the world's best female player and the defending champion here. Sorenstam had an up-close look at Wie in March, when they were paired at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the season's first LPGA major. Wie tied for ninth, which was impressive enough. But Sorenstam was perhaps more impressed by Wie's poise.
"If somebody had asked me how old she was, I probably would have said 18 or 20," Sorenstam said. "She plays like someone who has played the game for a long time. I thought her course management was good, and I liked her attitude. It must be fun to be so young and have all that in front of her."
Guiding Wie, an only child, are her parents, who accompany her to tournaments. Her father, B.J., is a transportation professor at the University of Hawaii; her mother, Bo, a former amateur golf champion in Korea, is a real estate agent.
Her father said Wie could play bogey golf from the men's tees by age 7. Though she dabbled in tennis, it became clear golf would be her sport.
"Her mobility wasn't that good," B.J. Wie said, smiling. "We chose golf because she didn't have to move."
"When a person has a special talent, you have to nurture it," he said. "We're taking these sponsor's exemptions because it's a chance to compete against the best players, and she'll learn. We're not doing it for the exposure. She has plenty of time for that. Michelle agrees with me that money can ruin a person."
B.J. Wie said his daughter had turned down an invitation to play in a PGA Tour event but refused to identify which. He added that he might lobby for a sponsor exemption for the PGA Tour Sony Open next January in Hawaii.
"I think she'll be ready by then," he said.
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