He's not Michelle Wie, but he IS in the U.S. Open

Hey Tim, you should know at your age that nothing in the world, especially in the US is fair. This culture doesn't do fair. If you are so 'fair' minded about things, why don't you start with the massacre in Iraq ? You won't, I hear you say because it's not about golf ? Golf, life, war, justice, what difference do you think these make ? It sickens me to hear the likes of you lamenting about the lack of justice, of all things, in golf.

"Fritsch is a good example of how some very good stories from the U.S. Open qualifying were lost in the Wie publicity glare."

If you really think that Fritsch would have had more publicity without Wie in the mix, then you're sadly mistaken. I don't remember hearing *any* news about no-name qualifiers from previous years.

Bzzzt. Try again.

More than 95 percent (maybe 99.99) of the World never knew their was local or sectional qualifying for the US Open before Michelle Wie entered the mix. Give her props for educating the masses.

Tim, you're just gonna have ta accept one fact Wie is good. And getting better. Soon will be great. That'a what all the buzz is about.

Don't be like a novice investor who watches a stock rise and do nothing and wish you were in after the stock has tripled! You would sound silly bringing it up after its old news.

Yes, by all means -- I MUST jump on the Wie bandwagon. I MUST follow all the latest trends, buy all the fancy new stuff! I MUST HEED the BUZZ!

One Putt.... don't you just love it when people throw out statistics that they have no way of knowing if it's true or not... I guess it's just the blogging way....

"Comment from: JR [Visitor]
One Putt.... don't you just love it when people throw out statistics that they have no way of knowing if it's true or not... I guess it's just the blogging way...."

Last year they issued NO press passes for the Canoe Brook Sectional. A couple of local reporters just showed up and wrote a paragraph or two stuck in the bowels of the sports section if the editor used it at all.

This year at Canoe Brook over 200 PRESS passes were issued to the media and Michelle's effort was published all over the planet. Every news wire had stringers at Canoe Brook this year for the first time. Video from ESPN and The Golf Channel was broadcast around the globe. Even the New York Times ran Michelle with a photo as the front page lead story.

So JR you can safely assume that the number of 95 percent is a low estimate of people who never knew there were qualification tournaments for the US Open before Michelle entered.

Michelle is Cold Fusion to the media as evidenced by this blog and a whole lot more people are educated now about the US Open sectionals than last year.

OnePutt... you must be really good at solving mysteries to come up with some valid statistics based on what you just wrote.... My hat's off to you.

Comment from: JR [Visitor]
OnePutt... you must be really good at solving mysteries to come up with some valid statistics based on what you just wrote.... My hat's off to you.

Thanks JR but no need to remove your hat. It is simple reasoning since we have a good idea that .008 percent of the world population actually plays golf. The US has the highest percentage of golfers of any country in the world.

Now I don't know what you think JR, but I can assure you that nearly all non-golfers do not have a clue how players are selected to play in the US Open.

Michelle's stories of her quest were published around the world in nearly every language and broadcast around the planet in those same languages.

ESPN and The Golf Channel are carried on cable or dish systems around the globe.

Michelle's name recognition is the best thing to happen to golf since a guy named Tiger burst onto the professional golf scene a little over a decade ago.

There are 6,660,000 web hits for Michelle today and 5,230 news hits when she finished in a tie for fifth.

Se Ri Pak won the McDonald's LPGA trophy today and has only 2,060,000 web hits and 976 news hits.

One-putt, I commend Michelle for the attention she has brought to the great sport of golf. The fact that she has achieved such great name recognition is a testament to a combination of factors, appearence, Nike(marketing), the ability to hit the ball farther then most women, her failed attempts to succesfully compete against the men, etc, etc...One thing we do know is that her fame is not a result of her results and her actual play and that is a shame. Using web hits to try to quantify the global importance of someone is a interesting method. A Google search of the ultra- talented and cuturally relevant Britney Spears this morning revealed 34,000,000 hits, while a search of global megastar and role model Anna Nicole Smith showed 12,100,000 hits. I guess Michelle's "quest" will have to take a back seat to true global icons such as these.

For the record the word "hype" produced 68,000,000 hits and "winless" produced 1,940,000 hits, no confirmation as to whether or not all of these stories were regarding Michelle Wie.

The percentage of the world's population that plays golf is actually closer to 1%, 0.94% according to a recent study.

Ford, well-said. I think quite a few people are jumping on the Wie bandwagon more because of celebrity power than her actual golf, though that, of course, has enormnous potential.

We worship celebrities, and woe be unto those who don't: they feel the holy wrath of the warriors.