Michelle Wie Is Finally A Major Champion

One of the biggest weeks in golf, and I was in Philadelphia. Of course.

- It almost seems scripted in a way. Michelle Wie, the one time prodigy who has seen her game fall to pieces and a mountain of people write her off as a failure, has a come back season where she wins in her home state, comes to the US Open with all the attention on her, and walks away with the trophy as the number one player in the world tries to chase her down. Oh, and it also happens to be the week the next "child prodigy", Lucy Li, steals the headlines the first two days. I want to buy the rights to this movie.

- I can't help but thing back to Meg Mallon's decision to select Wie for the Solheim Cup team last year. Mallon likened herself to Greg Norman, who selected Adam Scott to his Presidents Cup team while Scott was in the worst slump of his career. Scott went on to find his confidence after that, and is now the number one player in the world. Perhaps all Wie needed was to be reassured that someone still believed in her.

- Wie had every opportunity to choke away this tournament. After a double bogey on the 16th, followed by Stacy Lewis' charge down the stretch, it was in the cards for Wie to hand the trophy over to Lewis. It was Wie's mental toughness, the thing she has improved on the most in the past year, that kept her calm enough to birdie the 17th and win the tournament. A lot of other players would have folded in that moment. Kudos to Wie for keeping it together and pulling off the shots she needed.

- A lot of people are asking "how many majors will Wie win now?" It's impossible to forecast how many she will end up in her career, but I think it's a legitimate question to ask how many she'll end up with by the end of this YEAR. She finished runner up to Lexi Thompson at the Kraft Nabisco and just won the US Open. She is performing in the majors better than any other golfer on Tour. Is it completely inconceivable that she could go into the LPGA Championship or the Evian Masters and walk out the winner?

- Some runner up finishes are better than others, and Stacy Lewis' this week was one of the best I have ever seen. For one, Lewis has always struggled on US Open layouts. Her game is just not suited to grind out pars. She didn't really prove me wrong this week, either, as her rounds showed the strengths and weaknesses of her game. In her opening round, she was able to make Pinehurst look like a walk in the park as she was firing at flags, but as the middle two rounds got incredibly tough, Lewis' "peddle to the metal" mentality backfired on her. To be able to rebound in the final round and shoot a 66 with birdies on some of the hardest holes on the course shows Lewis' incredible ability. I'm sure Lewis would have loved to win the tournament, but she can't be incredibly disappointed with this week.

- How about that for a pro debut? Stephanie Meadow's first check as a professional golfer is a 3rd place finish in the biggest event on the LPGA schedule. I am not sure where this will lead Meadow - if she'll try out for the European Tour or if she'll stay in the states - but I am now highly interested in this young lady. She didn't let the stage get to her.

- Take away Lydia Ko and ShanShan Feng's bad opening rounds, and they are right there at the end of the week fighting for the tournament. They always say that you can't win a tournament on the first day, but you can lose it, and that's exactly what happened to Ko and Feng, who shot 76 and 77, respectively. For Feng, this is another tournament where one round derailed her, but I said the same thing about Michelle Wie a couple weeks ago. Feng's rise as a superstar is coming. As for Ko, it seems sooner rather than later that we will be talking about her as a major champion. She may just have to wait for her 18th birthday, like Lexi Thompson.

- Speaking of Ms. Thompson, I was expecting another Wie/Thompson weekend shoot out like we got at the Kraft Nabisco. It surprised me to not see Thompson give a real run for the championship. I figured being in contention would have given Thompson a push. Some weeks you have it and some weeks you don't, and it's telling that Lexi, despite having a lackluster weekend, was still able to pull out a top 10.

- Speaking of not having it, is any result more surprising than Inbee Park's T43 finish? This seemed like the kind of course Park would have been able to succeed at, and yet she just seemed lost the entire week. It's even more surprising considering Park's victory two weeks ago. Riding in as defending champion with a win immediately behind her and yet she still finishes towards the bottom? It's baffling to me. Park is never a player to write off considering the kind of game she possesses, but she seems like the odd lady out with Wie and Lewis having pronominal seasons.

- Please come to the US, Sakura Yokomine! Even if it's just for one season!

- Seven straight birdies to win a tournament? Not a fine day at the office. I don't know much about Kevin Streelman except that he always seems to find a way to pop up a few times a year in different tournaments. The fact that he not only broke the records for most consecutive birdies to win a tournament, but that he also did so by chasing down some of the best in the game shows what can happen if you don't give up on a round. Anything is possible on the back 9.

- Sergio Garcia is going to be fine. He may have gotten clipped down the stretch from winning this tournament, but his runner up finish shows that Garcia is at least back to contending again. Given how he's finished in the two majors this season, it's at least a positive result. I think Sergio will win once this season, though it would have been great if it were a major.

- I wonder how many more opportunities KJ Choi is going to have to win a tournament. At 44 years old, Choi clearly isn't the golfer that was near the top of the leaderboards in all the events he played in. If KJ gets himself in these positions, he needs to start closing the deal, because before too long, he won't have this opportunities anymore.

- Buy stock on Aaron Baddeley. Now is the time. Seeing him perform at the US Open, followed by his near miss at the Travelers makes me think Baddeley is in for a career resurgence. He will have a couple more high finishes before breaking through before the end of the year. Though, now I'm nervous, because if I predicted it to happen, it probably won't.

- Tiger Woods returns to action next week. I'll do a complete break down of what this means later this week.

- The KLPGA and JLPGA both had some big time winners this week as the rest of the world was focusing on the US Women's Open. On the KLPGA, Hyo Joo Kim, whom I think is going to be the next great Korean to take the women's game by storm, won her first event of the season, and former world number one JiYai Shin won her first JLPGA event since fore fitting her LPGA membership.