Wie woes lessen
After a year of almost undiluted misery on the course – all under the public gaze – Michelle Wie shared the early lead in the Ricoh Women’s British Open at St Andrews today.
Inspired perhaps by the first staging of a women’s professional event at the Home of Golf, the 17-year-old Hawaiian birdied the fourth and fifth holes to set the pace with Mexico’s world number one Lorena Ochoa and Italian Tullia Calzavara.
There had been a feeling the wide open spaces of the Old Course might re-ignite Wie, who has not broken 70 since July last year and who in her five previous tournaments this year – she missed almost five months with a broken wrist – was a cumulative 82 over par.
So it proved as she got away with drives on the second and third holes that went so far left she was over the other side of the adjoining 17th and 16th fairways.
On the second occasion she was worried her backswing might be impeded by the out of bounds fence, but each time she parred and after an approach to 10 feet for her opening birdie she found the green in two at the 514-yard fifth.
The group in front of her – Americans Natalie Gulbis and US Open champion Christie Kerr and Japanese star Ai Miyazato – were still putting at the time, but it was no problem as Wie’s ball was more than 45 yards from the flag.
From there she did wonderfully well to two-putt, sinking a nine-footer to improve to two under on the same hole where Miyazato, also one under on the tee, ran up a double-bogey seven after pushing his drive into rough and then hitting her next only 20 yards into a pot bunker.
Ochoa has taken over from Annika Sorenstam this year as the top player in the women’s game but she has yet to win a major and birdies at the fifth and eighth boosted her confidence that that could end this weekend.
Sorenstam, fighting her way back to fitness after suffering a ruptured and herniated disc in her back, was among the later starters, as were Britain’s Laura Davies and defending champion Sherri Steinhauer.
