TEEING OFF

1. Professional golf may have lost one superstar for the year with Tiger Woods about to undergo season-ending knee surgery, but a potential star seems to be having a revival of sorts.

Michelle Wie, who is playing the Wegman’s LPGA in Rochester, N.Y., enters the tournament looking a lot more like the prodigy she was two years ago than the bust she has been since.

She finished sixth in a Ladies European tour event June 1 in Germany, shooting 14 under par for four rounds and finishing a tournament under par for the first time in nearly two years.

Last week, she shot 70-67 at U.S. Open qualifying and easily made it through.

“I had a good two weeks,” she said. “I feel like I’m getting back on track. I see my improvements coming, so I’m very happy about that.”

Wie, who has been recovering from a wrist injury suffered last year, had missed four cuts and withdrawn twice in 10 tournaments since the beginning of 2007. When she made the cut, she finished 84th, 69th, 72nd and 19th in the 20-player Samsung World Championship.

“It was very tough for me, because, obviously, it was my wrist that was broken, not my mind,” Wie said. “I felt like I could do better than that. I think what got me through it is the belief it was just my wrist. I just broke my wrist. I was not going to let my wrist break me.”

2. The absence of Woods for the rest of the season will not only affect the money list and FedEx Cup standings, but it also opens a spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

This year, the rules for the U.S. team were changed to give an automatic spot to only the top eight in the points standings after the PGA championship. Previously the top 10 had earned a spot on the 12-player team.

Woods mathematically clinched a top-eight spot last week, but he won’t be playing, so the No. 9 spot will now become an automatic. Brandt Snedeker now holds the ninth spot and would be on the team if it were selected today.

3. This week’s PGA Tour stop was already lacking in star power with Vijay Singh and Justin Rose the only players among the top 10 in the world rankings entered in the Travelers Championship, but the U.S. Open follow-up lost another when Rocco Mediate withdrew after losing the Monday playoff with Woods.

There are eight 2008 tournament winners entered, though it might take a PGA Tour media guide to identify many of them: D.J. Trahan, J.B. Holmes, Steve Lowery, Brian Gay, Greg Kraft, Johnson Wagner, Ryuji Imada and Kenny Perry.

Brad Faxon, who won the tournament in 2005, was planning to make his season debut this week after undergoing knee surgery last August, but he withdrew Wednesday because of lingering problems with the knee.

4. Jay Haas, the Champions Tour money leader the last two seasons, went the first 12 tournaments this season without a victory, but he has won the last two and is atop the money list once again with $1,346,280.

He’s looking for his third consecutive victory this week at the Bank of America Championship in the Boston area. He was the last player to win three consecutive events when he turned the trick in 2006. He’s the defending champion at Nashawtuc Country Club.

5. Josh Anderson of Murrieta, a redshirt freshman at Pepperdine, continues his assault on history today in match play at the California State Amateur championship at Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake. Anderson, 19, is the defending champion and is trying to become the first repeat winner since Dr. Frank “Bud” Taylor in 1954-55.

This is the first time in its 97-year history that the tournament has been played outside the Monterey Peninsula. It was played at Pebble Beach from 1920 to 1999 and 2001 to 2006.

A SLICE OF LIFE

Hank Haney, Tiger Woods’ swing coach, on Woods before the U.S. Open

‘Every night, I kept thinking there was no chance he’s going to play. He had to stop in his tracks for 30 seconds walking from the dining room table to the refrigerator.’

STAT OF THE WEEK

After his second-place finish at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, Rocco Mediate, above, moved up 111 spots in the world golf rankings. He began the U.S. Open ranked 158th. He is now 47th.

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peter.yoon@latimes.com