Biography - Michelle Wie

Michelle Wie started golfing at a little over four years old in her home state of Hawaii. Her father, B.J. Wie, started teaching her. By the time she was 11, Michelle was regularly winning most of the amateur tournaments she played in and was even playing better than most men. She decide she wanted to become a pro-golfer after watching Tiger Woods play. Wie has pictures of Tiger all over her bedroom and also hopes to go to Stanford University, just like Tiger did. Michelle Wie loves playing against the guys on the PGA tour but that's where her fascination for boys ends - for now. "I don't like boys," she says. "They're kind of annoying."

On March 1, 2002, Wie, who is six-feet tall, played in her first LPGA tour event. She failed to make the cut at the Takefuji Classic in Hawaii but still managed to turn some heads with her 280-yard drives and her understanding of the game. "I'm not disapppointed. I'm just happy to be here. There's free food and free drinks and nobody bothers you on the practice greens," said Michelle after shooting six strokes over par in the first two rounds. In June, 2003, Michelle Wie became the youngest winner in the history of the Women's Amateur Public Links, with a 1-up victory over Virada Nirapathpongporn at Ocean Hammock.

Michelle Wie became the youngest person, and just the fourth female, to play in a PGA tour event, when she teed off at the Sony Open on January 15, 2004. Wie missed the 36-hole cut by just one stroke, but finished with a higher score than 47 grown men! Michelle Wie didn't look at all out of place at the event, with her average drive being a whopping 271 yards. However, Wie was still a bit disappointed at not making the cut. "Just one more shot, and I would have made it," she said after finishing with birdies on two of the last three holes. "It's killing me now." Michelle Wie came close to making her first cut at a PGA event at the 2005 John Deere Classic - but had a late collapse in the second round to miss the cut by two strokes.