Michelle Wie said ahead of this week’s Evian Masters that she is
Michelle Wie said ahead of this week’s Evian Masters that she is not ready to leave Stanford University and concentrate all her energies on golf.
The former teen sensation was reacting to criticism from Swedish golfing legend Annika Sorenstam that she was spending too much time studying and was not playing enough golf.
Answering this accusation, the Hawaiian-bred American said: “Looking back at my stats and tournaments that I’ve played, I note that this year I’ve played in every single event except one.
“So I’ve been doing my best (to play as much tournament golf as (possible)
“I love being out here. Obviously I want to be the best player that I can be; I want to win majors; I want to win tournaments; and I’m working very hard at that. Right now that’s my No. 1 goal, especially during the summer holidays. And even if I’m at school, you know, I don’t go to school full time. I have to go part time because obviously I do play, and I play in almost every tournament.”
Wie, who comes from an academic family of Korean-born parents, said education had always been important to her ever since she was a child.
“Knowledge and education are very powerful tools for young adults and while I also believe that my sporting career is also important, I don’t want to have to give up my education.
“I also believe that college is a lot more than just education and books. I think it was a very important step for me to go to Stanford and to experience living on campus, kind of making it on my own, you might say.
“People that have gone to college know that you do grow. For me, being out here spending a lot of time (in golf) when I was younger, it forced me to grow up a lot faster. I think I needed this step in my life, and I don’t regret any of it.”
Wie’s top priority this week, though, has nothing to do with books unless it’s the little one that holds all the course information about the picturesque Evian-Les-Bains in France where she will be teeing it up this week against the World’s 111 best golfer competing for the LPGA’s fattest purse ($.25 million) at the Evian Masters.