Wie Will Give LPGA Event Old Preteen Try

Ty Tryon may have turned heads when he qualified for the PGA Tour at 17, but a Hawaiian girl is making that look like child’s play.

Michelle Wie, 12, became the youngest golfer to qualify for an LPGA Tour event, shooting an 83 at Waikoloa Beach Resort on Monday in Hawaii to earn a spot in the season-opening Takefuji Classic beginning today at the club’s Beach Course.

Wie’s qualifying round included 10 penalty strokes.

A seventh-grader from Honolulu, Wie made news last year when she became the first female to qualify for the 94th Manoa Cup, the oldest tournament in Hawaii, and won the Jennie K. Wilson Invitational, Hawaii’s premier women’s amateur tournament.

Earlier this month, the 5-foot-10 Wie became the first female golfer to qualify for the Hawaii Pearl Open, an amateur tournament that attracts many Japanese golfers. She missed the cut after rounds of 74 and 81.

Beverly Klass, who competed in four LPGA Tour events in 1967 at age 10, is the youngest to play an LPGA event.

Tiger Taxed

Tiger Woods paid 4.2 million yuan ($500,000) in taxes on his appearance fee for a November exhibition match in the south China city of Shenzhen, making Woods the biggest taxpayer in that city last year, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Woods, in Miami for the Genuity Championship, declined to say how much he was paid for the two-day exhibition or how much he paid in taxes. But he was surprised to hear that he was the top taxpayer.

“That’s actually pretty funny,” Woods said. “But it’s not that funny.”

Tiger Who?

David Salinas of Boston won a contest sponsored by a golf company and will play 18 holes with Fred Couples on Friday at Sandpiper Golf Course in Santa Barbara.

Salinas, 36, is a two handicap who calls Couples his favorite tour player.

“I would rather play a round with Fred than Tiger,” Salinas said.

Senior Class

Thirty of the top 31 from the 2001 Senior PGA Tour money list have committed to play in the Toshiba Senior Classic next week at Newport Beach Country Club.

Past Toshiba Senior Classic champions Jose Maria Canizares, Allen Doyle, Gary McCord, Hale Irwin and Jim Colbert are among that group, as are top senior players Tom Watson, Larry Nelson, Bruce Fleisher, Tom Kite and Gil Morgan.

Senior tour rookies Fuzzy Zoeller, Ben Crenshaw, Tom Purtzer and Wayne Levi will be making their first Toshiba Senior Classic appearances. Perennial fan favorites Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Dave Stockton and Ray Floyd have also committed.

Tickets are available by calling (949) 660-1001, by visiting Roger Dunn Golf Shops or by logging on to www.Ticketmaster.com.

Equipment and More

The 13th Annual Southern California Golf Expo, featuring equipment manufacturers, merchandise retailers and lessons from PGA professionals runs Friday through Sunday at the Fairplex in Pomona.

There will also be contests, including an indoor 50-yard par-three hole for a free round of golf or a free club.

Hours are Friday 2-8 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.- 7 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $9 for adults, $7 for seniors 50 and older and $4 for juniors 11-17. Children 10 and under get in free.

All junior golfers 17 and under receive a free club with admission.

Generation Next

Fan favorites Amy Alcott, Karrie Webb, Dottie Pepper and Juli Inkster will join defending champion Annika Sorenstam in the LPGA Tour’s Office Depot Championship on April 5-7 at El Caballero Country Club in

Tarzana.

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster at (213) 480-3232 or on the Internet at www.ticketmaster.com

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The Office Depot Championship is seeking volunteers to work as scoring officials, standard bearers, course marshals and in concessions.

Information: Alice Gray at City of Hope at (800) 667-5310 or on the Internet at www.officedepotgolf.com.

New Course

Trilogy Golf Club, a Ted Robinson Sr. design in Glen Ivy in Riverside County, opens for play Friday.

The course, located just south of Corona, measures 6,773 yards from the back tees and had four sets of tees on each hole.

The 18th hole features a 200-foot drop from the tee to the fairway, among the largest drops in the nation.

Green fees are $43-$63, cart included. Reservations: (909) 277-7175.