Post by wiesyfan on Dec 11, 2013 11:43:14 GMT -5
Michelle's interviews are always a fun read.
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My Shot: Michelle Wie
Golf's former child prodigy on nightmares, haters, the best bodies on tour, taking old guys' money, and connecting with a puppy named Lola
Michelle Wie / Age: 24 / Jupiter, Florida
MY SHOT: MICHELLE WIE (AUGUST 2004)
MORE MY SHOT ARTICLES
WITH GUY YOCOM
PHOTOS BY JOHN LOOMIS
January 2014
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, my dreams at night were filled with balloons and Pikachu, from Pokémon. Not anymore. In my recurring golf dream, I'm walking to the first tee and can't get there. I keep passing the same part of the clubhouse. My tee time is in one minute, the clock is ticking and I'm walking faster, but I can't get anywhere.
IN ANOTHER DREAM, I'm in a shopping-cart race, clattering around the floor of a huge hotel. If I lose the race, I die. The doors to the rooms are open, and as my cart races by I look in and see bathtubs filled with blood. Like the movie "The Shining," except the feeling of impending doom is worse. Nice, huh?
I WATCH AND READ too much stuff with gore and violence. That's where the dreams come from. I was hooked on the Showtime series "Dexter." I loved the novel Battle Royale. But the carryover isn't just dreams. After I watched the movie "Flight," in which a plane goes down in graphic detail, I began having a terrible time flying. A little turbulence, and I start sweating. I've grabbed the hands of strangers next to me, thinking, This is it. Maybe I should change my viewing habits.
AIR HUGS on the LPGA Tour are getting to be a little much. You'll see the players air hug each other and each of the caddies. In a threesome, that's five hugs per player. In a weird way I kind of like them, but at the Solheim Cup it got a little nuts. When a match ended, you hugged not only your opponents and their caddies but each of your teammates. You air hugged the captains, your teammates' spouses, their parents and siblings, and assorted others. Total air-hug-fest. You sort of have to do it, because if you offer only a handshake it looks like an affront. Stacy Lewis and I are air-hug dissenters. We've agreed to at least not air hug each other. But I'm skeptical whether it will catch on.
MY BIG GOAL FOREVER was to play in the Masters. Some people don't remember that I nearly pulled it off. In 2005, I lost in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Publinx. If I'd won that match and two more, I would have gone to Augusta. In a way I'm glad it didn't happen. When you achieve your ultimate dream at age 15, it makes it hard to set new goals. A part of you will always say, What else is there?
I HAVE NO REGRETS about playing in men's events. In fact, I don't regret anything. If I were offered an exemption to a PGA Tour tournament tomorrow, I'd decline. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't accept in the future. Never say never, you know?
YOU'LL HEAR young adults say, "My mom is my best friend." I find that kind of creepy. The parental thing doesn't mix with the friend thing. My mom and I cook and shop together, and we talk a lot. We're close. But she'll always be my mom, and that relationship is different from the ones I have with friends like Christina Kim and Jane Park. They know things about me that my mom doesn't, and vice versa. You can't channel everything you think and feel with one person. It isn't healthy.
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN FRUGAL. I'm not the type who will spend $7,000 on a handbag. When I was young, I got a plain mailing envelope from my dad. Any money that came in—allowance, birthday money, everything—went into that envelope. I kept a ledger of everything that went in and out. My goal was to save enough money so I could buy a car by the time I got my driver's license, and I did it. I still have that envelope.
SOME OF THE MONEY in that envelope came from golf gambling when I was an amateur. I was ruthless on the old guys who thought they could beat me. I also made money playing poker. When I was 12, my dad invited me to sit in with him and his buddies at their regular poker game. I caught on fast and did well. But as I got older, I lost my poker face. Once that's gone, there's no getting it back. So I quit.
IN 2003, I went to the Champions Skins Game at Wailea Golf Club. The players were Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer. Watching them hit balls on the range, Mr. Nicklaus was the most impressive. There was something about his trajectory and the sound his ball made when it came off the clubface. Mr. Nicklaus had lost a lot of distance—I played in the pro-am with him and played the same tees—but it was clear how he won all those majors.
I WAS AT ANOTHER EVENT with Gary Player. Out of the blue he says, "Michelle, hit me in the stomach." I didn't want to punch him, so I kind of poke him instead. He says, "No, I want you to really hit me!" He widens his stance and clenches his stomach. Now I really hit him. I'm no fighter, but I hit him as hard as I could. It hurt my hand. It didn't faze him. He pointed to his stomach and said, "A thousand sit-ups a day" and kept walking.
FOUR YEARS AGO, I walked into a pet store knowing I couldn't have a dog. I travel too much and just can't fit one into my life. That's always how it starts, right? The person at the pet store asked me if I'd like to handle one of the puppies. I saw a little Pomeranian mix and said, "I'll try that one." After 10 minutes I handed her back to the worker and walked toward the door. Halfway there, I turn around and ask if I can hold the dog again. This went on for six hours. Back and forth. Three hours into it, I gave the dog a name: Lola. Once you've named the dog, it's over. She's coming with you.
WHY ARE SOUTH KOREAN women on the LPGA Tour so good? The answer might lie in archery. The South Korean women's team has won nearly every gold medal since archery began as an Olympic sport. Archery is super demanding in terms of focus, poise, mental discipline and the amount of practice required to excel. South Korean women have those qualities. They translate incredibly well to golf.
IT'S MY FIRST Kraft Nabisco. I'm 13, playing with Natalie Gulbis. On the fifth hole, I put a new ball into play. On the sixth fairway, I told Natalie I'd changed balls. She stops and gives me a look of shock. "You can't do that out here," she says. "That's a two-stroke penalty. You need to go back to the tee." I was speechless, on the verge of tears. Just as I turned to start walking back to the tee, Natalie said, "Just kidding."
NATALIE HAS THE BODY on the LPGA Tour we'd all like to have. Best hair is a tie between Gerina Piller and Kathleen Ekey. Best butt: Vicky Hurst. Funniest: Christina Kim.
BY THE TIME that Kraft Nabisco came along, I'd stopped growing. I was 6 feet tall. I wore a size 9½ shoe, same size I wear today. I was the longest baby in the hospital, the tallest kid in kindergarten and the tallest girl in middle school. Just when I was wondering if I might grow to be 7 feet tall, it stopped.
I'M ALLERGIC to everything. Gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts. Weird things like pineapple and cherries. I have more allergies than anyone I know. But I can't get on board with the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. I cook and eat anything I can that tastes good and won't make me sick. Pork ribs, live squid—everything is in play. One of my friends came up with a great name for my diet: "selectetarian." When I go to a restaurant, the first thing I say to the server is, "I'm sorry, but when I order I'm going to be 'that person.' " They always appreciate the warning. A nice tip helps, too.
WHEN I FELL and broke my wrist in three places in 2007, it was more serious than diagnosed. I tried to come back too early. It was a rough year. The thing with injuries is, it isn't just the injury, it's the things associated with it. I took a ton of ibuprofen to deal with the pain. That ate up my stomach lining and I got "leaky gut." Then I developed an allergy to the ibuprofen, which, combined with pain and stress, made me feel terrible all over. I have a lot of empathy for people who hurt. They hurt in ways you can't see.
TO FIX SLOW PLAY, faster players must find the courage to tell the slower players to speed up. You know who doesn't think twice about suggesting you get going? Angela Stanford. I'm not a slow player per se, but there was a tournament where the pace of play was awful, and I'd slowed down to fit into the rhythm. I was playing with Angela, and she sidled over to me while we were waiting on one of the tees. "You sure were slow on that hole where I struggled." She said it in a such a matter-of-fact way, I didn't argue, I just started playing faster.
I LOOK AT LYDIA KO and Charley Hull, who are 16 and 17 and just turning pro, and see them as so young and innocent. That's surprising coming from me, because I'm only 24. But I'm clearly older than they are and have been around. I began having pro-like experiences long before I was even their age. If I were to offer Lydia and Charley one piece of wisdom, it's that they find a way to be happy even during the down times. We all have ups and downs, and it's important to realize that our downs are better than the average person's ups. There are so many people who don't have homes or struggle to put food on the table.
I ATTENDED the same prep school in Hawaii as President Obama: Punahou School in Honolulu. By the time I got there, he was a U.S. senator and definitely a legend. A lot of Obama's teachers had left, but one of his school counselors was still there, and the boys' basketball coach. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the Obama lore, but I recall people saying, one, he was a darn good basketball player. Two, he was very smart. And three, he had an enormous Afro hairstyle.
I FINISHED my freshman year at Stanford with a 3.4 GPA, majoring in communications. Not bad, but compare that to my roommate, who had a 4.3 GPA, majoring in biomechanical engineering. One day she said, "Take this nanotechnology class with me. It's really easy. We'll have fun." I signed up, and it turned out to be the hardest class I've ever taken in my life. I barely survived it. One thing about Stanford: You're never the smartest person in the room.
ON TWITTER, I get to control the message. I get to choose which parts of my life I want to share, and my words are unfiltered, straight from me. Some athletes and celebrities have struggled on Twitter. Here's my secret on that: I don't read @themichellewie "mentions" about me, because that's where the haters are.
PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET have become so negative, but what if people went out of their way to be positive? I think the power of random positive comments can really change someone's day. When was the last time you said something nice to someone, just because? The Internet has become so nasty, and my heart breaks for kids in school who endure cyberbullying. I was bullied during middle school, and it felt horrible. I can't fathom how much worse it has gotten via social media.
HOLES-IN-ONE on par-3 courses are legitimate. They count, and here's why. After I lost my first-round match at the Sybase Match Play, I played in a pro-am the next day. Hamilton Farm has probably the best par-3 course in the world, 18 great holes. Two of my partners were brothers, one 18 years old, the other about 10. Early in the round I made a hole-in-one. The youngest brother had never seen an ace before, and he went nuts. On the 14th hole I made another hole-in-one, one of those shots you just know is going in. I'll never forget the look on the 10-year-old's face. He looked at me like I was a superhero. Thinking about it now, I hope he makes a hole-in-one someday. Because the next one he sees might be a little anticlimactic.
Read More www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2014-01/my-shot-michelle-wie#ixzz2nBY3uu97
_____________________________________________________________________________________
My Shot: Michelle Wie
Golf's former child prodigy on nightmares, haters, the best bodies on tour, taking old guys' money, and connecting with a puppy named Lola
Michelle Wie / Age: 24 / Jupiter, Florida
MY SHOT: MICHELLE WIE (AUGUST 2004)
MORE MY SHOT ARTICLES
WITH GUY YOCOM
PHOTOS BY JOHN LOOMIS
January 2014
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, my dreams at night were filled with balloons and Pikachu, from Pokémon. Not anymore. In my recurring golf dream, I'm walking to the first tee and can't get there. I keep passing the same part of the clubhouse. My tee time is in one minute, the clock is ticking and I'm walking faster, but I can't get anywhere.
IN ANOTHER DREAM, I'm in a shopping-cart race, clattering around the floor of a huge hotel. If I lose the race, I die. The doors to the rooms are open, and as my cart races by I look in and see bathtubs filled with blood. Like the movie "The Shining," except the feeling of impending doom is worse. Nice, huh?
I WATCH AND READ too much stuff with gore and violence. That's where the dreams come from. I was hooked on the Showtime series "Dexter." I loved the novel Battle Royale. But the carryover isn't just dreams. After I watched the movie "Flight," in which a plane goes down in graphic detail, I began having a terrible time flying. A little turbulence, and I start sweating. I've grabbed the hands of strangers next to me, thinking, This is it. Maybe I should change my viewing habits.
AIR HUGS on the LPGA Tour are getting to be a little much. You'll see the players air hug each other and each of the caddies. In a threesome, that's five hugs per player. In a weird way I kind of like them, but at the Solheim Cup it got a little nuts. When a match ended, you hugged not only your opponents and their caddies but each of your teammates. You air hugged the captains, your teammates' spouses, their parents and siblings, and assorted others. Total air-hug-fest. You sort of have to do it, because if you offer only a handshake it looks like an affront. Stacy Lewis and I are air-hug dissenters. We've agreed to at least not air hug each other. But I'm skeptical whether it will catch on.
MY BIG GOAL FOREVER was to play in the Masters. Some people don't remember that I nearly pulled it off. In 2005, I lost in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Publinx. If I'd won that match and two more, I would have gone to Augusta. In a way I'm glad it didn't happen. When you achieve your ultimate dream at age 15, it makes it hard to set new goals. A part of you will always say, What else is there?
I HAVE NO REGRETS about playing in men's events. In fact, I don't regret anything. If I were offered an exemption to a PGA Tour tournament tomorrow, I'd decline. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't accept in the future. Never say never, you know?
YOU'LL HEAR young adults say, "My mom is my best friend." I find that kind of creepy. The parental thing doesn't mix with the friend thing. My mom and I cook and shop together, and we talk a lot. We're close. But she'll always be my mom, and that relationship is different from the ones I have with friends like Christina Kim and Jane Park. They know things about me that my mom doesn't, and vice versa. You can't channel everything you think and feel with one person. It isn't healthy.
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN FRUGAL. I'm not the type who will spend $7,000 on a handbag. When I was young, I got a plain mailing envelope from my dad. Any money that came in—allowance, birthday money, everything—went into that envelope. I kept a ledger of everything that went in and out. My goal was to save enough money so I could buy a car by the time I got my driver's license, and I did it. I still have that envelope.
SOME OF THE MONEY in that envelope came from golf gambling when I was an amateur. I was ruthless on the old guys who thought they could beat me. I also made money playing poker. When I was 12, my dad invited me to sit in with him and his buddies at their regular poker game. I caught on fast and did well. But as I got older, I lost my poker face. Once that's gone, there's no getting it back. So I quit.
IN 2003, I went to the Champions Skins Game at Wailea Golf Club. The players were Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer. Watching them hit balls on the range, Mr. Nicklaus was the most impressive. There was something about his trajectory and the sound his ball made when it came off the clubface. Mr. Nicklaus had lost a lot of distance—I played in the pro-am with him and played the same tees—but it was clear how he won all those majors.
I WAS AT ANOTHER EVENT with Gary Player. Out of the blue he says, "Michelle, hit me in the stomach." I didn't want to punch him, so I kind of poke him instead. He says, "No, I want you to really hit me!" He widens his stance and clenches his stomach. Now I really hit him. I'm no fighter, but I hit him as hard as I could. It hurt my hand. It didn't faze him. He pointed to his stomach and said, "A thousand sit-ups a day" and kept walking.
FOUR YEARS AGO, I walked into a pet store knowing I couldn't have a dog. I travel too much and just can't fit one into my life. That's always how it starts, right? The person at the pet store asked me if I'd like to handle one of the puppies. I saw a little Pomeranian mix and said, "I'll try that one." After 10 minutes I handed her back to the worker and walked toward the door. Halfway there, I turn around and ask if I can hold the dog again. This went on for six hours. Back and forth. Three hours into it, I gave the dog a name: Lola. Once you've named the dog, it's over. She's coming with you.
WHY ARE SOUTH KOREAN women on the LPGA Tour so good? The answer might lie in archery. The South Korean women's team has won nearly every gold medal since archery began as an Olympic sport. Archery is super demanding in terms of focus, poise, mental discipline and the amount of practice required to excel. South Korean women have those qualities. They translate incredibly well to golf.
IT'S MY FIRST Kraft Nabisco. I'm 13, playing with Natalie Gulbis. On the fifth hole, I put a new ball into play. On the sixth fairway, I told Natalie I'd changed balls. She stops and gives me a look of shock. "You can't do that out here," she says. "That's a two-stroke penalty. You need to go back to the tee." I was speechless, on the verge of tears. Just as I turned to start walking back to the tee, Natalie said, "Just kidding."
NATALIE HAS THE BODY on the LPGA Tour we'd all like to have. Best hair is a tie between Gerina Piller and Kathleen Ekey. Best butt: Vicky Hurst. Funniest: Christina Kim.
BY THE TIME that Kraft Nabisco came along, I'd stopped growing. I was 6 feet tall. I wore a size 9½ shoe, same size I wear today. I was the longest baby in the hospital, the tallest kid in kindergarten and the tallest girl in middle school. Just when I was wondering if I might grow to be 7 feet tall, it stopped.
I'M ALLERGIC to everything. Gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts. Weird things like pineapple and cherries. I have more allergies than anyone I know. But I can't get on board with the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. I cook and eat anything I can that tastes good and won't make me sick. Pork ribs, live squid—everything is in play. One of my friends came up with a great name for my diet: "selectetarian." When I go to a restaurant, the first thing I say to the server is, "I'm sorry, but when I order I'm going to be 'that person.' " They always appreciate the warning. A nice tip helps, too.
WHEN I FELL and broke my wrist in three places in 2007, it was more serious than diagnosed. I tried to come back too early. It was a rough year. The thing with injuries is, it isn't just the injury, it's the things associated with it. I took a ton of ibuprofen to deal with the pain. That ate up my stomach lining and I got "leaky gut." Then I developed an allergy to the ibuprofen, which, combined with pain and stress, made me feel terrible all over. I have a lot of empathy for people who hurt. They hurt in ways you can't see.
TO FIX SLOW PLAY, faster players must find the courage to tell the slower players to speed up. You know who doesn't think twice about suggesting you get going? Angela Stanford. I'm not a slow player per se, but there was a tournament where the pace of play was awful, and I'd slowed down to fit into the rhythm. I was playing with Angela, and she sidled over to me while we were waiting on one of the tees. "You sure were slow on that hole where I struggled." She said it in a such a matter-of-fact way, I didn't argue, I just started playing faster.
I LOOK AT LYDIA KO and Charley Hull, who are 16 and 17 and just turning pro, and see them as so young and innocent. That's surprising coming from me, because I'm only 24. But I'm clearly older than they are and have been around. I began having pro-like experiences long before I was even their age. If I were to offer Lydia and Charley one piece of wisdom, it's that they find a way to be happy even during the down times. We all have ups and downs, and it's important to realize that our downs are better than the average person's ups. There are so many people who don't have homes or struggle to put food on the table.
I ATTENDED the same prep school in Hawaii as President Obama: Punahou School in Honolulu. By the time I got there, he was a U.S. senator and definitely a legend. A lot of Obama's teachers had left, but one of his school counselors was still there, and the boys' basketball coach. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the Obama lore, but I recall people saying, one, he was a darn good basketball player. Two, he was very smart. And three, he had an enormous Afro hairstyle.
I FINISHED my freshman year at Stanford with a 3.4 GPA, majoring in communications. Not bad, but compare that to my roommate, who had a 4.3 GPA, majoring in biomechanical engineering. One day she said, "Take this nanotechnology class with me. It's really easy. We'll have fun." I signed up, and it turned out to be the hardest class I've ever taken in my life. I barely survived it. One thing about Stanford: You're never the smartest person in the room.
ON TWITTER, I get to control the message. I get to choose which parts of my life I want to share, and my words are unfiltered, straight from me. Some athletes and celebrities have struggled on Twitter. Here's my secret on that: I don't read @themichellewie "mentions" about me, because that's where the haters are.
PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET have become so negative, but what if people went out of their way to be positive? I think the power of random positive comments can really change someone's day. When was the last time you said something nice to someone, just because? The Internet has become so nasty, and my heart breaks for kids in school who endure cyberbullying. I was bullied during middle school, and it felt horrible. I can't fathom how much worse it has gotten via social media.
HOLES-IN-ONE on par-3 courses are legitimate. They count, and here's why. After I lost my first-round match at the Sybase Match Play, I played in a pro-am the next day. Hamilton Farm has probably the best par-3 course in the world, 18 great holes. Two of my partners were brothers, one 18 years old, the other about 10. Early in the round I made a hole-in-one. The youngest brother had never seen an ace before, and he went nuts. On the 14th hole I made another hole-in-one, one of those shots you just know is going in. I'll never forget the look on the 10-year-old's face. He looked at me like I was a superhero. Thinking about it now, I hope he makes a hole-in-one someday. Because the next one he sees might be a little anticlimactic.
Read More www.golfdigest.com/magazine/2014-01/my-shot-michelle-wie#ixzz2nBY3uu97
