Articles After Lotte Win

[bobawiefan]

Wie keeps good times rolling into college grounds
By
Randall Mell
April 21, 2014, 9:45 am



Michelle Wie couldn’t have landed in a better place to rebound from her loss at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.
Returning to her Hawaiian home this past week, with an entire state eager to embrace her, she responded with some of the most brilliant golf of her career, coming from four shots behind in the final round Saturday to win the Lotte Championship at Ko Olina Golf Club, the course she grew up playing.
“I definitely cried a little bit last night,” Wie said on Sunday in a teleconference. “It truly was a dream come true to win my first tournament on U.S. soil in my hometown, with all my friends and family watching.”
And now Wie, 24, couldn’t land in a better place to follow up her first win in nearly four years. Wie heads to San Francisco this week to play in the Swinging Skirts Invitational at Lake Merced Golf Club. She’s returning to the Bay Area for the first time since she graduated from Stanford two years ago.
“I haven’t been back to Stanford since I graduated,” Wie said. “Hopefully, I’ll have time to visit.”
Wie is planning to have dinner on Monday night in San Francisco with some of the friends she made while at Stanford. She still raves about her time there, at how happy she was and how much she grew up.
“I definitely miss school,” Wie said. “I’d like to go back to school at some point - not now, obviously.”

"Feherty" visits Michelle Wie at Stanford 43 minute Tape here:
No URL address?

Going to Stanford and getting a degree was a childhood dream of Wie’s. Suddenly, so many other dreams are coming back into focus. With her resurgence this year, she’s regaining form that makes her look as if she will become a considerable threat for some of the top prizes in the women’s game this year.
“I have dreams, long-term goals,” Wie said.
Good luck getting them out of her. She’s smartly sticking to the mantra that’s working so well for her this year. She keeps saying she just wants to be more consistent. She knows doing so will bring larger goals into play. It’s working like a charm.
Wie heads to San Francisco first in LPGA money winnings ($616,555), first in scoring (69.57), first in hitting greens in regulation (81 percent) and first in rounds under par (25).
“I’m really in a good place with my swing right now,” Wie said.
Winning Saturday in Hawaii, Wie formidably dissected Ko Olina Golf Club in difficult winds. She split the middle of so many fairways with that low, screaming stinger 3-wood of hers. She hit 10 of 14 fairways in the final round. She hit 15 greens in regulation, and she needed just 28 putts.
“Michelle had everything under control,” said David Leadbetter, her swing coach. “She really has all her ducks in a row now. She’s just going to get better and better and really fulfill her star potential, I think.”
It isn’t just the crispness of ball striking that has Leadbetter so excited about Wie’s game. It’s what he feels radiating out of her heart again.
“She’s in love with the game again,” Leadbetter said. “Her whole attitude’s changed, tremendously.”
After graduating from Stanford, Wie was expected to elevate her game with her focus no longer divided. She didn’t. In fact, she slumped. In 2012, she missed the cut 10 times in the 16 events she played where there were cuts. She missed five cuts in a row.
Wie said at Kraft Nabisco that her frustration mounted seeing no rewards for all the hard work she was putting into her game. There was no fun in that.
“It was sad,” Leadbetter said. “She was working hard, putting in more hours on the range, and nothing was happening. She was desperately trying to make something happen. She was forcing things. Once you start losing confidence, it’s hard.”
Leadbetter said he saw the frustrations choking Wie’s love of the game. While Wie’s game showed signs of rebounding in 2013, Leadbetter sensed a weariness in her. At year’s end, he told her to take five weeks off without touching a club. She went home to Hawaii feeling funny because she didn’t pack a usual staple on all her trips.
“I didn’t bring my clubs home,” Wie said. “It was strange. I kind of had some anxiety about it.”
Wie said she worked out hard during her five weeks away from golf, did a lot of yoga and hiked a lot. When she returned to Florida to see Leadbetter for a preseason boot camp before starting this year, she was revitalized. They picked up with changes that were working late in the ’13 season.
Leadbetter said he saw a spark returning to Wie’s game at the Solheim Cup late last summer. He saw all the pieces of her revitalized game coming together in her run at the Kraft Nabisco two weeks ago. He really saw it in her final-round charge in her victory at the Lotte Championship.
It was great to see her so full of confidence,” Leadbetter said. “She was just beaming.”
Leadbetter said people never understood how the injuries Wie has endured through the years hurt her game. They changed her swing. Wie broke three bones in her left wrist in ’07 in a fall. Leadbetter had to rebuild her swing after that.
“I don’t think there’s been enough said about how many injuries she’s had and how they hurt her golf swing,” said four-time major championship winner Meg Mallon, who captained Wie in the Solheim Cup last summer. “She had to revamp her swing because she couldn’t bend her wrists very much.”
Wie tried to play through a severely sprained ankle in 2009. She tried to play through a bulging disc in her back late in 2010
Through all these injuries, there were emotional injuries, too. Wie, her parents and her managers made mistakes. There was disrespect withdrawing from Annika Sorenstam’s tournament in the middle of a round in ’07, with Wie citing injury when it appeared she was going to fail to shoot better than 88, a high score that would have disqualified her from playing in an LPGA event for a year. The next day, she was seen hitting balls at the site of the following week’s LPGA event.
With other questionable decisions, there came unrelenting criticism that Wie was entitled and over-hyped, that she was an underachieving failure who would never fulfill the promise projected for her.
“You have to have a thick skin to endure the kind of negativity that’s been directed at Michelle, and the negative things that continue to be said about her,” said Hall of Famer Beth Daniel, who captained Wie on the ’09 U.S. Solheim Cup team. “The criticism really hasn’t stopped. Yes, she won this week, but if she goes out and doesn’t play well next week, there will be more negativity. I think the expectations are so high for her, and it hurts when there’s criticism because of it.
“I really think that Michelle has one of the most positive attitudes in the game. I think that is what gets her through all of this.”
Wie was asked if her win Saturday made her to want to strike back at all the critics who doubted she’d ever win again.
“No,” she said. “People are entitled to opinions. I have opinions about people myself. I’m just so happy to win my first tournament on American soil in my hometown. I’m just happy about that, and I’m grateful. All the ups and downs I’ve been through, especially the downs, have really made me who I am today. It’s made me grateful. Without the downs, I wouldn’t be as happy as I am today.”
So happy, Wie cried when Saturday’s win fully sank in.

Link to Article:
www.golfchannel.com/news/randall-mell/next-wie-return-her-college-town/

[bobawiefan]

Great expectations a heavy burden for young talent
By
Jason Sobel
April 21, 2014, 3:40 pm


In the aftermath of Jordan Spieth’s title contention at the Masters Tournament, just a few hours after the 20-year-old flirted with our imaginations before finishing in a share of second place, I was asked the following question during a radio interview:
“Does Jordan Spieth need to win a major soon in order to validate what he did this week?”
Once I removed my jaw from the ground and gathered my thoughts enough to respond, I stammered something about how he could go winless at the majors for two more years and still be on Jack Nicklaus’ pace, or eight more years and still be on Arnold Palmer’s pace, or 14 more years and still be on Ben Hogan’s pace. Or if the questioner preferred a comparison of a more recent vintage, Phil Mickelson’s first also came 14 years later than Spieth’s current age. And really, if you want to get technical about the query, the kid doesn’t need to validate anything he just accomplished on the game’s biggest stage.
So, you see … a simple “no” wouldn’t have sufficed.
But just that sort of question – even if this specific one was merely the stuff of shock radio hyperbole – is the kind that’s acceptable in other sports, but doesn’t translate well to golf.
Juan Marichal tossed a one-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts in his major-league debut. Mario Lemieux stole the puck from Ray Bourque and scored in the first shift of his first NHL game. LeBron James went straight from high school to the NBA and posted 25 points, nine assists and six rebounds in his initial appearance.
Those guys were bound for greatness right from the start, barely a speed bump in their way.
Because of its individual nature, because of the depths of its fields on the elite tours, because experience plays such a major factor and a player’s prime age can last for nearly three decades – because of so many reasons, really – expectations for young golfers so often go unfulfilled.
All of which leads to another player who’s been in the news lately.
This player is only 24, but just recorded a third career win on the highest level to go along with 10 top-10s in major championships already. Sound like someone about whom you’d be optimistic? Surprise: That means you’re bullish on Michelle Wie.
Golf’s poster child for what happens when a player is overhyped and underperforms, Wie has now put together a resume befitting an up-and-coming star. Take away everything you already know about her, erase those memories of her teeing it up in men’s events a decade ago, and the numbers alone suggest she’s on the verge of bigger and better things very soon.
And yet, when it comes to long-term expectations, most observers have already moved on to the much younger Lexi Thompson and Lydia Ko, each of whom has won LPGA titles as teenagers.
That’s one problem with expectations in golf. By the time they’re fulfilled, we’ve usually saddled a younger phenom with ‘em.
Another problem: The more a player exceeds expectations, the more is expected from that player. That might sound like a riddle, but it afflicts the best and brightest of the upcoming generation. Always has, really.
I asked Rory McIlroy about this phenomenon during the Memorial Tournament two years ago. At the time, McIlroy was a year removed from one eight-stroke major championship win and two months shy of another. He was in the midst of missing a third consecutive cut and the scrutiny must have felt like four walls closing in on him.
“I think that is the way of life in anything, if you're in the spotlight,” he admitted then. “If I'd have missed two cuts in a row a couple years ago, no one would have batted an eyelid. But nowadays, it's a little different.”
Expectations are a funny thing. When former unheralded junior golfer Bubba Watson becomes a two-time Masters champion, he’s exceeded expectations; when sweet-swinging Fred Couples, straight out of central casting, wins only one, he’s somehow underachieved.
If Tiger Woods eventually falls short of his intended goal of 18 or 19 major victories, it might be written that he was crushed under the weight of not only his own expectations, but those of everyone else, as well. Is that fair? Of course not, but as Woods often says, it is what it is.
There’s a lesson here. It’s one that Rory McIlroy learned a few years ago and Michelle Wie is still learning today and Jordan Spieth will learn in the coming months and years. The better a young player is, the bigger the expectations.
Winning won’t make them go away, either. It will only continue inflating the anticipation like a balloon, until it can’t take any more and bursts or hovers in the air overhead.

Link to Article:
www.golfchannel.com/news/jason-sobel/great-expectations-heavy-burden-young-talent/

[bobawiefan]

You probably didn't notice: Michelle Wie has been the best player on the LPGA Tour this year
By Alex Myers

Remember when Michelle Wie was overhyped? That's not the case anymore.
Wie may have snapped a 79-event winless drought on Sunday with a victory at the Lotte LPGA Championship in Hawaii, but the breakthrough was inevitable. Wie, 24, hasn't just been playing well in 2014, she's played the best of anyone on the LPGA Tour.
Don't believe our hype? Let's examine the numbers. Wie is first on the money list at $615,555 in seven starts. She's first in scoring average at 69.57, more than .3 ahead of Stacy Lewis and Inbee Park. And she's first in greens in regulation at an eye-popping 81 percent (No one has cracked the 80-percent barrier for a season since the LPGA officially started keeping track of the stat in 1992).

Even Wie's putting -- weird stance and all -- has improved. She ranks only 70th in putting average, but that number is skewed because of the high number of greens in regulation she hits (Again, 81 percent!). More telling is Wie ranking 17th in putts per greens in regulation (Unfortunately, the LPGA doesn't keep strokes gained/putting). She ranked 119th in that category just two years ago.
Wie's four top 10s in 2014 are one fewer than what she had in the past two seasons combined, and her worst finish so far was a T-16 at the Kia Classic last month. She also finished runner-up to Lexi Thompson at the year's first major, the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

After starting the year at No. 61 in the Rolex Rankings, Wie has moved all the way up to No. 13 with three terrific months of golf. At this rate, she'll be knocking on the door of the top five soon. Believe it.

Link to Article:
www.golfdigest.com/blogs/the-loop/2014/04/you-probably-didnt-notice-mich.html

[bobawiefan]

Wie Shines At The Lotte Championship
A Dottie Pepper Video at this link:
espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:10817534
Dottie Pepper breaks down three things we learned from the 2014 LPGA Lotte Championship.

[bobawiefan]

No time like the present for Michelle Wie
By Melissa Isaacson | Apr 21, 2014
espnW.com

You half expect she would be bitter by now, maybe even a little vindictive with her career on a decided upswing after being all but written off for much of it.
Michelle Wie admitted Sunday "it wasn't always easy," but transmitted nothing but positive energy after a come-from-behind win at the LPGA Lotte Championship in her hometown of Honolulu.
"People are entitled to their opinions, I obviously have opinions about other people as well," Wie said in a conference call with reporters a day after winning her third pro golf tournament and first in four years.
"I'm just really grateful for everything. I do believe everything happens for a reason and all my ups and downs, especially the downs, make me who I am today. ... Without the downs, I wouldn't be as happy as I am today."
You sense in Wie the blossoming not just of a professional golfer comfortable with her game, but a 24-year-old woman comfortable with herself. But then, there has always been more to Wie than the golf prodigy with the gorgeous swing.
Several years ago, while a student at Stanford, she seemed to find that other side, discovering relief from the pressure and often less-than-satisfying results on the course, with a sketch pad and a real passion for art.
Her friends already know that she also enjoys sewing, blogging, is an accomplished baker and a self-professed foodie who can eat "a lot for such a skinny girl," one acquaintance said with a laugh. She is gluten/dairy-free but has a special fondness for ribs and sushi and, oddly for the Hawaiian native, is allergic to pineapples.
Several times, Wie called the win this weekend "a dream come true," which may seem odd for someone who had so much so young. She was to be the female Tiger Woods, received Tiger-like endorsements before she could drive a car, and was often characterized as a disappointment to a pro tour that was counting on her to be the type of superstar who could transcend the game like an Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa.
But while Wie's results did not necessarily comply, her fans stayed loyal and her galleries stayed strong, waiting patiently for her obvious talent to come to fruition.
On Sunday, Wie seemed to struggle for the answers as much as anyone has, stymied as to whether she is playing well lately because she is having fun, or having fun because she is playing well.
"It's a two-way street," she said. "I'm definitely happy to be playing well, but I'm definitely enjoying being out there. I think I'm treating it a lot more like a game when I'm out there. 'Let's see if I can hit this shot. Let's see if I can make this putt.' It's not life and death out there. I'm definitely having a lot more fun, and hopefully it's showing."
It certainly has been lately. In 2012, she finished in the top 10 just once in 23 tournaments. In 2013, there were four top-10 finishes in 26 starts. She switched to a severe-looking tabletop putting style and it looked no less a desperate move when she took five weeks away from the tour at the end of last year.
But for the kid who once seemingly never took a break, this was just what she needed, she said.
"I came home to Hawaii and didn't bring my golf clubs, which was really strange because I don't know how to pack without my golf bag," she said.
But unlike recent years, she said, this was "active rest," as she hiked, did yoga and got her body stronger. And in 2014, she responded with seven cuts made in her first seven starts, all top-16 finishes, including a fourth place at the Honda LPGA Thailand, runner-up to Lexi Thompson at the Kraft-Nabisco two weeks ago and then the LPGA Lotte Championship.
The win puts her No. 1 on the LPGA Tour money list at $616,500.
"I think I'm just getting more comfortable being a golfer ... with who I am, and I think that's resonating to having more fun out there," she said.
"When I was young, I loved being out on the golf course, but it's hard being in the public eye when you're growing up and going through everything. But I definitely think I'm past the awkward middle-school/high-school stage now."
And then some, though she reminds us that this was a gradual process and not a result of any dramatic adjustments.
"I think it was working on the same thing [swing coach] David Leadbetter and I have always been working on," she said. "We just knew it wasn't going to be an overnight change. Sometimes hard work shows up in one day, sometimes it shows up in a year. But being patient really pays off."
Is she better today, she was asked, than when she had six top-five finishes in 2006 at 16?
Her answer indicated it may not matter.
"When I played really well as a kid, I was like, 'Oh, I played well, yea,'" she said. "Now I'm so grateful and it means a lot more to me."
The tour, she said, will benefit with the added exposure "it deserves from so many great personalities." It also benefits from wins by great young talent such as Thompson and Lydia Ko and, yes, Wie, who can still draw attention like no other.
But for now, she's just having fun.
"Obviously, I have dreams and long-term goals, but in the short term I just want to stay in the present," she said. "A lot of times, I kind of think too far ahead or try to plan out everything and I'm just going to try to take it day-by-day, shot-by-shot and just really stay in the present and do the best I can to stay in the moment. If I do that, the rest just kind of takes care of itself."

Link to Article:
espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/10813127/espnw-there-no-time-present-lpga-lotte-winner-michelle-wie

[bobawiefan]

Michelle Wie relishes win in Hawaii

By Melissa Isaacson | Apr 19, 2014
espnW.com

Michelle Wie performs the Hula after winning the LPGA LOTTE Championship Presented by J
Golf on April 19, 2014 in Kapolei, Hawaii.

OK, now this could be fun. And when was the last time anyone said that about the LPGA Tour and really meant it?
Surely you could not have watched Michelle Wie's unabashed joy after coming from four strokes back in the final round Saturday to win the LPGA Lotte Championship and not feel the surge of energy currently coursing through women's golf.
If 19-year-old Lexi Thompson's first major championship two weeks ago at the Kraft Nabisco gave the tour, presently chock full of prodigies, a real reason to be optimistic about the future, then Wie's victory gave it a jolt from the past.
Playing in her native Hawaii, the 24-year-old earned her third career tour victory and first on U.S. soil, almost shocking for those of us who remember well when Wie played in the final group of the Kraft Nabisco at age 13 and soon after became golf's "It Girl."
She was a pro at 15, over-hyped and -- gifted as she was -- under-prepared for the pressure that came with endorsement deals worth more than $10 million a year. Then came the whole competing-on-the-men's-tour thing -- in which she missed the cut in 11 of 12 tournaments -- and just two LPGA victories through her first five years on tour. The most positive thing to come out of her career through 2012 was a Stanford degree.
Wie's determination since then, and results this year with finishes no lower than 16th in six events -- including a finals-pairing showdown with Thompson at the Kraft Nabisco that came up three strokes short -- has been a revelation for both Wie and women's golf.
And now, ironically, the tour can finally cash in on the always-popular Wie's comeback as well as a slate of top 10 golfers that, week to week, has a legitimate chance to win.
Wie's gallery always has been impressive, but lately it is back to being electric and there is no reason to think it won't build from here. Even her competition has seemingly rallied around her, a 16-year-old Lydia Ko calling Wie her idol, and the usually-all-business Cristie Kerr hugging Wie after her final putt in Kapolei on Saturday under a shower of Moet supplied by best pal Christina Kim.
"I was kind of thinking what I was going to do after I made the putt," Wie said. "Was I going to jump up and down? I made the putt and I just froze. I completely just froze. I couldn't move my body. I was about to cry and ... my friends out here are just amazing. I feel so much support from them. We support each other through hard times and good times."
Surely, women's golf also knows hard times, and it deserves good times. Kicked in the shins again recently when Golf Digest -- which hasn't had a woman golfer on its cover since Lorena Ochoa in 2008 -- chose to feature a provocatively posed fiancé of a men's pro golfer this month, the LPGA has every reason to feel good about its overall attractiveness.
It is youthful, competitive and after the last two weeks, very, very interesting.
"I just had fun out there," Wie said. "I had a blast."
A good thing all the way around.
Links to Article:
espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/10811218/espnw-michelle-wie-relishes-win-native-hawaii
www.lpga.com/golf/blogs/2014/4/espnw-article-wie.aspx

[bobawiefan]

Michelle Wie says she's grateful after win in Hawaii
Steve DiMeglio, USA TODAY Sports 6:45 p.m. EDT April 20, 2014


During her darkest moments, when at times her finger nails were polished black, her interests were elsewhere and her fondness for golf indifferent, Michelle Wie never lost sight of the light.
Through escalating criticism of her parents and of her failure to build on enormous promise, Wie always
held her head high.
Counted on to lift the LPGA tour when she was a dynamic 6-1 force as a teen-ager, Wie, while still luring the largest galleries, nearly became an afterthought as her body broke down. She faded into golf's background while earning a degree in communications at Stanford.
But patience, she will tell you, was her 15th club.
Older and wiser at 24, the tour's marquee player returned to victory lane Saturday with a tour de force final-round, 5-under-par 67 to win the LPGA Lotte Championship by two shots at windswept Ko Olina Golf Club in her native Hawaii. With her third LPGA title, her first on U.S. soil, the former prodigy ended a four-year, 0-for-79 drought and ignited buzz for a tour hoping to lift its profile.
"I definitely cried a little bit last night because I was so happy," Wie said Sunday during a conference call. "It was a dream come true for me to win my first tournament on U.S. soil in my hometown. ... I've been through a lot of things. A lot of ups and downs, a lot of life experiences. And after experiencing all of that, I am a lot more grateful for my good play.
"I'm enjoying being out there. I'm definitely treating it a lot more like a game. It's not life or death out there."
Wie's vast popularity with fans and peers was exemplified when she was trending No. 1 on Facebook and Twitter on Saturday night, including this from her witty colleague Sophie Gustafson: "The cow is out of the barn and it's not coming back. Predicting monster year for @themichellewie Congrats!!"
Predictions have shadowed Wie since she played in the final group in a major at 13. At 14 she fell just one stroke short of making the cut on the PGA Tour, at 15 turned pro after contending in three majors that year, at 16 was ranked just behind world No. 1 Annika Sorenstam and No. 2 Paula Creamer. In the first 12 majors she played, she finished in the top-5 in six.
But she dealt with a broken wrist, a severe ankle sprain and a bulging disc in her back. She won her first LPGA title in 2009, her second the next year. But in 2012, she missed 10 cuts in 23 starts and called it the worst year of her career.
Her game started to turn near the end of 2013 as swing changes she is working on with David Leadbetter started to take hold.
Her good play extended into this year and she finished second to Lexi Thompson, another American 6-1 force, in the Kraft Nabisco Championship three weeks ago, her best finish in a major championship.
"She's been playing great," Lotte runner-up Angela Stanford said. "She's having a great year, so it was bound to happen. I just happened to be the one that caught the buzz saw."
Golf Channel on-course analyst Jerry Foltz saw it coming. He was in step with Wie for six of her last eight rounds. "The high road can be an empty place, and Michelle has never taken another route," Foltz said. " … "Michelle is the No. 1 needle-mover in women's golf, just as she has been since she burst onto the golf landscape even in her pre-teen-years. And now, based on her consistent play and growing confidence, the young lady who's been labeled by many as yet another under-achieving former phenom, may just be reaching her seemingly limitless potential."
Especially if she continues to employ her vast talents on the course. Wie is leading the LPGA tour in many statistical categories, most impressively greens in regulation (81%), scoring average (69.57) and money with $616,555. She has yet to finish out of the top 16 in any of her seven starts this season.
"Could she still dominate the LPGA tour? Perhaps, but I don't think that's her motivation. I think she's well past having professional accomplishments define her character," Foltz said. "If she has indeed finally figured out that golf is not a scientific pursuit, then I think her future could be that of the incredible success once predicted, and expected of her."
A dominant Wie would add to the LPGA tour's wave of momentum. There are 32 events this year, up from just 23 three years ago. Creamer sank the putt seen round the world earlier this year while Thompson won the first major. While Wie and Thompson could be the towers of attention, others will have plenty to say about that, including world No. 1 Inbee Park, No. 2 Suzann Pettersen, No. 3 Stacy Lewis and World Golf Hall of Fame member Karrie Webb.
"It's going to be such a happening, if it's happening," Hall of Famer Judy Rankin told Golf Channel viewers about Wie's reemergence. "She has turned the corner … the corner people have been waiting for."
This week Wie returns to her Stanford stomping grounds to play in the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic at Lake Merced Golf Club in San Francisco, in a good place on and off the golf course.
"Golf is something I have always loved to do. It's just hard to grow up in the public eye and go through everything," she said. "I do believe everything happens for a reason. All the downs have definitely made me who I am today. Without the downs I wouldn't be as grateful as I am today.
" … I want to stay in the present. A lot of times I think too far ahead or I try to plan out everything."

Link to Article:
www.usatoday.com/story/sports/golf/lpga/2014/04/20/michelle-wie-lpga-tour-win-lotte-championship-hawaii/7945689/

[bobawiefan]

Hawaii MVP: Michelle Wie

[bobawiefan]

Wie Love Ping Pong

For the third year, the LPGA and Kia will celebrate excellence in performance both on and off the course with the Kia Performance Awards.

Michelle Wie is the most recent nominee for the Kia Performance Awards - Community Assist which is given to a player who makes an exceptional contribution to a charity organization or community program.

After winning the 2014 LPGA LOTTE Championship Presented by J Golf, Wie played host to the inaugural "Wie" Love Ping Pong Tournament. The purpose of the fundraiser was to raise enough money to start two college scholarships managed by the Hawaii Community Foundation.
Link to Article:
www.lpga.com/golf/blogs/2014/4/wie-love-ping-pong.aspx