I've written about Michelle Wie here previously, mostly to talk about her no-longer-deserved phenom status, or her latest pathetic performance on the golf course. This time, the tone is different, and I can't help but feel bad for her and wonder if the golf gods hate her.
Michelle has stepped back to a part-time schedule now that she is a student at Stanford, and was off to a better than usual year with two top-25's and a top-10 in her first four events of 2008. This weekend, Wie was making her first appearance at the Statefarm Classic in Springfield, Illinois.
Wie came out strong and posted scores of 67 and 65 to find herself 12 under par, putting her in the top ten after the cut and headed into the weekend. She shot another 67 in the third round to reach 17 under par and was destined to spend the final day of the tournament playing in the final pairing with a serious shot at taking home her first title.
Then something strange happened. The committee in charge of the event came to her and informed her that at the completion of her second round the previous day, she had failed to sign her score card, and had thusly broken a rule and disqualified herself.
Boy there are a lot of strange details here. First of all, about what happened. She didn't literally fail to sign her scorecard. What happened is that Wie left the scorer's tent without having signed her score card, two of the scorers went after her and told her, and she came back to sign it. Unfortunately, because she had walked beyond the roped-off, "official" area before she returned, it was too late, and she had to be disqualified.
The second oddity here is how it was handled. The committee somehow did not figure out the violation and the need to disqualify her until she had already begun her third round play, and therefore didn't let her know until after she had completed the round.
Article comments
1 - Bud
Maybe they were hoping that she'd blow up in the 3rd round, then it wouldn't seem like such a travesty to DQ her or maybe they knew the tournament would take a hit so they delayed her DQ as long as possible. Probably none of the above and just one of those s**t happens things. Another of those stupid rules that makes it hard to take take this game seriously.
2 - SIP
Good summary Geeves. Letting her play the third round was heartless by the 'powers that be'. I wonder if Michelle Wie will come back next year to the SFC and prove everyone wrong? Lets hope so.