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Wie makes pro debut at Samsung, trails Annika by six
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-14 09:16
PALM DESERT, Calif. (AP) -- Michelle Wie listened for her name to be
announced, waved to a gallery that was perched among the desert fauna at
Bighorn, then gracefully bent over to stick a tee in the ground.
Michelle Wie's
opening-round 70 has her tied for 12th in the Samsung World Championship's
20-player field. | It was no different from any of
the 93 previous rounds she played against the pros.
Only when she steadied her 6-foot frame over the ball did it start to sink
in. The 16-year-old from Hawaii, still waiting to get her driver's license, was
about to embark on her professional career.
"I wasn't that nervous when I put the ball on the tee," she said. "I wasn't
that nervous when I took my practice swings. But once I got over my tee shot, my
heart was thumping. It was different."
Her 3-wood soared against the brown-and-green backdrop of desert golf into
the fairway, and she was off. And when the first round of the Samsung World
Championship ended with a bogey from the bunker for a 2-under 70 -- six shots
behind defending champion Annika Sorenstam -- it felt like any other round on
the LPGA Tour she has been playing since she was 12.
Not much different, either, was the name atop the leaderboard.
Watching the Michelle Wie Show unfold in the group ahead, Sorenstam went
about her business with alarming precision on her way to an 8-under 64, a score
that could have been even lower except for missing birdie putts inside 5 feet on
the final two holes.
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