Wie’s Ready to Make a Splash

She’s used to all the attention now, even if she is still only 14 years old, but as we all know, Michelle Wie is not a normal 14-year-old.

Or is she?

On Wednesday, Wie wore silver cord-like earrings long enough to be some kind of lasso with a bronco at the other end. The longest earrings she has, they hung down to her shoulders.

Not only that, Wie said she didn’t think she should swing a golf club while wearing them, because they would slap her right across the face.

There was more. She also said she is eager to get to Paris, where she will play the Evian Masters, because she can’t wait to wear out her father’s credit card. It’s always fun, she said, to spend somebody else’s money.

And that’s not all Wie said, either. She had a lot on her mind. If she was feeling any pressure with the job ahead of her, she was doing a great job of hiding it behind a huge smile.

It didn’t seem to matter that this morning she will tee it up at the Kraft Nabisco Championship at Rancho Mirage, the first of the LPGA’s four majors, and try to see if she can do better than last year, when she tied for ninth.

Of course, that was back when she was in the eighth grade. Speaking of school, the first year of high school is a lot tougher, she said.

Wie was just getting warmed up.

She is playing the Curtis Cup and she is excited about that (Michelle is excited about just about everything with the exception of medieval history, boys shorter than her and anything to do with running) and she is really excited about the fact that she’s going to see a pot bunker for the very first time.

Imagine the thrill.

For the record, B.J. Wie estimates that his daughter is all grown up ... to 6 feet 1/2 inch -- half an inch taller than she was at Christmas.

But this teenager is far from all grown up, no matter how well she plays golf or how brightly her prodigious ability seems to light up everything around her, like some giant neon sign.

There’s a new teaching arrangement with David Leadbetter and Gary Gilchrist, a slightly revamped swing and a new goal for this week at Mission Hills.

What Wie wants to do this week at the LPGA’s first major tournament of the year is to play better and jump in the lake. She says she thinks it would be pretty fun to do that. It would also mean that Wie had won the tournament, because that pond-dive at the 18th green is reserved for champions only.

Unless everyone is badly mistaken, Wie is going to be jumping in that lake pretty soon. There is absolutely no question that she has already made a big splash.

If there is a new media darling, it’s Michelle Wie. She signs autographs, poses for pictures, conducts interviews with style and poise, like an old pro.

But this old pro isn’t old and she isn’t a pro. She’s in the ninth grade. That’s part of the strange and enthralling juxtaposition that makes Wie so hard to ignore and so much fun to watch.

Here you have a girl in a woman’s body who can drive the ball 300 yards and barely miss the cut in a PGA Tour event.

And you’re also looking at a young person. She said she could watch ‘Dumb and Dumber” every night of the week. That includes Tuesday night, when she wanted pizza but had to settle for Chinese instead.

Bummer, as she might say.

But that’s rare. About the only thing Wie really isn’t on board with is people who get her autograph and then sell it. She said she has learned to distinguish between genuine fans and those who view her signature as nothing but commerce. She said it hurts her when she sees that.

Chances are there will come a day when the other players are hurt too, when they see Wie cut the dogleg off a par-four by knocking her drive over some trees. Or when she drives the green. Or when she eagles the 18th when she goes for the green in two and makes it easily.

Chances are it won’t happen for a while, at least as a pro. Wie said she still intends to play at Stanford, where it has already been reported that she would be welcome on either the men’s or women’s teams. She thinks it’s funny that anyone would think so far ahead because, after all, there is so much to do right now.

Come to think of it, she’s right. It’s going to be all about Michelle Wie soon enough, so maybe everybody should just pop a tape of a comedy into the VCR, order a pizza, sit back and chill. That’s what she would do.