You can call it what you want: a crisis of confidence, an irritable injury bug, bad karma, whatever you like, but the fact of the matter remains, Michelle Wie just isn't doing so great lately.

On the surface, things seem rather respectable. Michelle has placed in the top five a respectable six times in her last 14 major tournament appearances. The last month, however, has not looked like anything major - except perhaps a major implosion.

This string of bad mojo, or whatever it may be, started about a month ago at the Ginn Tribute, a tournament played in Mt. Pleasant, California and sponsored in large part by the other "Female Tiger Woods," Annika Sorenstam.

Wie was two holes from completing her first round of play and on pace to shoot an 86 when she withdrew, citing her recurrent wrist injury as the culprit. Many people were skeptical, mainly due to the "88 rule" that exists in the LPGA. That is to say, if you shoot a round of 88 or worse prior to the cut (1st or 2nd round), you are disqualified from all LPGA events for the remainder of the tournament year. That may not have happened to Michelle, but the way she had been playing to that point, it wasn't a very distant possibility.

She compounded the bad blood shown her by Annika (and a few other players, but mostly Annika) when she showed up in Maryland the following Monday, a mere four days later, to begin her practice rounds for the McDonald's LPGA Championship. Many barbs were thrown about; that she was being disrespectful to the tour and to Sorenstam's tournament, that she had faked the injury to withdraw and avoid the 88+ score, that this was typical childish behavior.

Michelle didn't play particularly well for the bulk of that tournament. She shot +3 through the first two rounds and made the cut by one stroke, then proceeded to shoot an 83 - the worst round of the tournament - and a 79 en route to a final score of 21 over par. She finished dead last, 35 shots behind the leader and 10 shots behind the next worst player.