Thursday, August 24, 2006

The bugs in Michelle Wie's bonnet

One of the options of summertime, is that we can open the windows of our house and let the fresh air circulate throughout the rooms, blowing out the stuffiness. After awhile though, the fresh air in the home becomes populated with bugs of all sorts....houseflies, bees, or even worse wasps, and we run to shut the windows.
Is the brief time we keep windows open worth the time we spend shooing-out those bugs? I guess it depends on who you listen to.

Michelle Wie (right now) has the world in the palm of her hand. She jets to and fro', nary a worry, as she conquers her own "world golf tour". Through her oversized rose-colored sunglasses....she does not see gender...she sees golf tournaments. The media has exhulted her, and let her open the windows of her "house". She is awash in the fresh air.

But houseflies are coming.

Wie needs to realize that next year is it for her to try and make the cut in a PGA event. It is crucial for someone in her posse to advise her of this. Otherwise, irreperable damage will be done to her brand.
Wie is exposing herself to being relegated to a sideshow antic...and she doesn't see it. To be fair, most great athletes don't. They always have a burning desire that they can compete at a higher level....even though they can't because their personal window of opportunity has closed (hello Evander Holyfield). The result is an unfortunate crash-and-burn...the debris left over is swept into the history books as a solitary statistic. Michelle Wie is on this path.

Why has this timetable of making a PGA cut been restricted to one-and-done?

Because of Tiger Woods.

His dominant display at Medinah, coupled with his voiced opinion that "it's just more fun to compete in majors", single-handidly advanced the timetable for Wie.

Tiger made a statement. The statement is: to be the greatest, you have to dominate great tournaments.

Michelle Wie is doing neither. She needs to focus on one thing right now: to dominate her field. Her field needs to be the LPGA. So what if she makes the cut in a men's event? Where will that take her? Not to the next level...which is actually to win a men's event.

In one fell swoop, Tiger Woods made Joe Public, and Jimmy Media Machine stand up and take notice...that sideshow antics are short-term...but dominance is where the long-term attraction really is.

Ms Wie: Are you listening? That sound ain't the switchgrass in the backyard.

Them's bugs.


Thanks for reading. Keep it in the short-grass,

JFB

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