A Wie Bit of a Mistake

By Jake Brown

Michelle Wie made her much anticipated professional debut this weekend in the LPGA World Samsung Championship. This was the biggest story of the weekend in golf, even bigger than Annika Sorenstam coasting to yet another victory. The problem was that Wie didn’t just make the headlines for competing in her first tournament as a pro.

She made the biggest headlines for being disqualified from the tournament, and losing $53,126 in the process. She was disqualified for taking an illegal drop on the seventh hole Saturday, removing her ball from a bush and putting it three inches closer to the hole, according to Wie. She was then disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.

The problem wasn’t that she was disqualified necessarily, it was the way it happened. She wasn’t disqualified until Sunday after her final round, a full day and then some since she made the drop. Most of all, the person who reported the incident was a reporter for Sports Illustrated, not a LPGA official.

First of all, hasn’t the LPGA ever heard of a statute of limitations? I know this is something every other rules organization has heard of. I understand that the Rules of Golf are a big part of what makes the game so endearing, but come on. Disqualifying someone for an incident that happened a full day earlier is obscene. Also, no LPGA officials picked it up. If the officials didn’t notice it at the time, nothing should be done about it. That’s the just way the ball bounces.

Think of it this way. A baseball team wins the a game in extra innings thanks to a walk-off two-run homerun. The call is controversial and it looks like a fan interfered with the play, but the play stands as called, game over. MLB consults the replay the next day and sees it’s not a home run, so they reverse the call and award the game to the other team. Sounds crazy right? Exactly. This would never happen in any other game, that statute of limitations had run out.

The next thing is who reported the incident to the LPGA. It was a reporter for Sports Illustrated by the name of Michael Bamberger. So the way I see it, Michelle Wie was penalize because of her popularity. If she were some mediocre golfer who nobody cared about nobody would have even noticed and she would have never been disqualified.

Another thing, since when is it the reporters job to help make the news. I’ve been taught throughout my journalism education that reporters report the news, they do not make it. So who is this guy to take this issue to officials. He can write about it and say anything he wants to in print, but it is not his place to do the job of LPGA officials. Sure he was trying to do the right thing, but it’s not his job. Reporters can squawk about calls from the press box, but they cannot change them.

Lastly, the way the LPGA went about the situation is a joke. Besides the fact that they should have left well enough alone, admitted a mistake and told everyone the statute of limitations had run out, they handled the situation very poorly in my opinion.

They reviewed the tape and didn’t see anything conclusive. So after Wie had already signed her scorecard for the final round officials took her and her caddy out to the seventh hole to ask them about the incident. They then measured it off with a string, that’s right, a string. Pretty scientific I know. Seems like some sort of rinky-dink operation to me. Then they decided to disqualify her.

Wie made an amateurish mistake by not getting officials to help her, sure. But the way the LPGA handled the situation was a disgrace, and robbed this young lady of an excellent start to her career and a nice chunk of change. The Rules of Golf simply need some boundaries that make it clear you can’t be penalize for something that happened after two different scorecards were signed, that to me is a joke. Until then, one can only hope Wie has learned from her experience.