Michelle Wie finally captures her first major title

To put Michelle Wie’s first major victory in perspective, World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam won No. 1 of her 10 grand slam titles when she was 24 -- the same age as the young woman who on Sunday in the U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst “finally” captured her elusive maiden major.

“Finally,” because if it seems as if the golf world has been waiting for half of Wie’s lifetime for the Hawaiian, who stoked the star-maker machinery by qualifying for an LPGA event at age 12, to fulfill others’ enormous expectations of her prodigious talents, well, it kind of has.

Golfers, especially on the women’s side, are making their debuts at increasingly tender years and 11-year-old Lucy Li, the youngest player ever to qualify for a women’s Open, stole the show to start the week in Pinehurst. It must have seemed like déjà vu for Wie, who until Sunday night had to relive her history as a former phenom each time she stepped into a press room, even as she sought to move ahead with a career that seems now to be on the trajectory projected for the 13-year-old who made the cut at the 2003 U.S. Women’s Open.

The 36-hole leader entered Sunday’s final round sharing a 2-under advantage with Amy Yang. It was a familiar spot for Wie, who was also a 54-hole co-leader in 2005 and 2006 and ended up T23rd and T3, respectively. She let it be known that her time was coming, when she once again entered the final round of a major, April’s Kraft Nabisco Championship, tied atop the leaderboard with Lexi Thompson and came in second to the 19-year-old.

But this Sunday, things were different. As Yang faltered, Wie overcame a bogey start to build a three-shot lead, only to watch it shrink to one after a questionable decision to hit a hybrid from a fairway bunker on the par-4 16th instead of laying up almost resulted in a lost ball. With the allotted time for locating the Nike 20XI-X ticking down, a search party worthy of a Tiger Woods errant shot finally found it burrowed in a wiry bush.

A younger Wie might have panicked and run awry of the rules book. Not this four-time LPGA Tour winner, and not on this Sunday.

Wie kept her nerve, took an unplayable lie and penalty shot, chipped to some 35 feet from the pin and two-putted to maintain a one-shot lead over Stacy Lewis, who was warming up on the range in case of a playoff. A 25-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th and a two-putt for par on No. 18 ended Lewis’ hopes of extra innings and Wie had finally fulfilled her potential.

Indeed, with this one victory, Wie overcame a spotty past as a would-be teenage star who signed endorsement deals worth millions before proving herself on the LPGA Tour, chased appearance fees and sparked resentment among women golfers in questionable attempts to play on the PGA Tour, and was involved in several rules and etiquette controversies.

“Without your downs, without the hardships, I don’t think you appreciate the ups as much as you do,” Wie said Sunday “I think the fact that I struggled so much, the fact that I kind of went through a hard period of my life, the fact that this trophy is right next to me, it means so much more to me than it ever would have when I was 15 ... I am just so grateful for ... everything I’ve been through. I feel extremely lucky.”

Wie turned public sentiment around when, as a captain’s pick for the 2009 U.S. Solheim Cup team, she won matches (going 3-0-1 in four starts) and fans among followers as well as peers with the obvious and genuine enthusiasm and joy she exhibited in playing with the squad. In November of the same year, Wie won her first professional tourney, the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, and added a second victory at the 2010 Canadian Women’s Open.

Still, the full-time Stanford student came under fire for letting college distract her from her part-time golf career and suffered through a disappointing couple of seasons before putting it all together this year. In April, she won her third tour contest, the LPGA Lotte Championship, in her native Hawaii. In addition to the victory and a second-place finish at Rancho Mirage, Wie entered the U.S. Open with an additional six top-10 finishes in 12 starts.

On Sunday, with Li a sideline spectator after missing the cut, the spotlight was back on Wie, who at 24 seems like the grande old dame of the LPGA -- except when one considers that 53-year-old Juli Inkster headed into Sunday’s finale just four shots back of the 54-hole co-leaders. Inkster, playing, she insisted, in her 35th and final Open, fired a 4-under 66 on Saturday to share third place with three others at 2-over.

“I think it’s great for our game,” Inkster, who finished the event tied for 15th at 7-over, told Karen Crouse Saturday about the current successes of the golfer once billed as the female Tiger Woods. “The media, our fan base, they know Michelle Wie, and when she’s in contention, our ratings go up.”

Inkster was hardly alone in her sentiments, as Wie’s long comeback run has planted seeds of promise that seem to be blossoming this season. While Wie has to be the favorite heading into the women’s next major, the Women’s British Open in little more than two weeks, it just might be OK to let her savor this all-important triumph before expecting her to grab that second.

“I’m not going to look too far ahead,” Wie said Sunday. “This is definitely motivating me to do better, get better [but] I’m just going to take it day by day.

“I’m having fun,” she said. “I’m just going to enjoy myself and see where it takes me.”

Without putting undue pressure on the one-time major champion, Karren Stupples and others believe we have witnessed only the start of what’s to come from Michelle Wie.

“Maybe this is the victory that she needed all along,” Sorenstam said in her post-game analysis. “I look forward to Michelle in the futures .. this could be the beginning of really something big.”