Sky-high confidence

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By Craig DeVrieze | Wednesday, July 12, 2006 1:18 AM CDT | () comments

Kevin E. Schmidt/QUAD-CITY TIMES When asked which would be a bigger deal between making the cut on the PGA Tour or winning an LPGA event, 16-year-old Michelle Wie said, “Well, I’ll tell you after I do both.”

SILVIS, Ill. — Michelle Wie does not know if she will put a number on her belt this week at the John Deere Classic.

“Not this week, I don’t think,” said the fashion-conscious Hawaiian teen who broke out a buckle with the target number 68 for the second round of last year’s JDC. “I have not checked in my belt bag, but I will see.”

There is one thing Wie definitely won’t put a number on as she makes a second attempt at PGA Tour history at the Tournament Players Club at Deere Run this week. Her confidence level.

“I don’t really compare confidence levels,” the 16-year-old burgeoning golf superstar declared before a room full of media Tuesday at Deere Run. “I don’t really put it on a sheet and write, ‘Oh, I had a confidence level of eight last year, and I have a confidence level of seven (now).’ I don’t really keep track of that.”

If you track confidence by declared intentions, however, WIE

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Wie’s self-assurance is off the charts as she prepares to make her fifth bid to make a PGA Tour cut — something no woman has accomplished since Babe Didrikson Zaharias did it twice in 1945.

Told Tuesday that playing partners Sean O’Hair and Zach Johnson both said she has ample game to be around for the JDC weekend, Wie barely blinked.

“A lot of people have expectations of me, and I have my own expectations of what I want to do or accomplish,” she said. “I am not going to think about this cut this year. I really want to play well and maybe go to the British Open. If I go to the British Open, then I have made the cut.”

More than that. collecting the British Open berth that is reserved for the highest JDC finisher not already qualified for next week’s men’s major championship in Liverpool, England, will mean that Wie got the best of virtually all of the 155 men players in this week’s field.

How’s that for confidence?

And how’s this:

Asked for the umpteenth time what would mean more to her, making a PGA Tour cut or winning an LPGA Tour event, Wie responded with practiced nonchalance: “Well, I’ll tell you after I do both.”

Yes, indeed, the ultra-talented teen’s confidence would appear to be just fine. Never mind the concerns of experts who wonder if a series of close calls in recent LPGA majors have put a dent in her mental game.

Count Wie among those who believe her top-five efforts in her first three majors as a professional are proof that her golf game is charting upward.

“I really had a chance to win every one of those majors,” said Wie, who collected two thirds and a fifth in those tournaments, not to mention a second in her first LPGA Tour start of the year. “And I feel like every single time, I am learning how to win. I am learning how to handle that kind of last-round pressure.”

Wie faced similar pressure in the second round of last year’s JDC, when she stood a shot below the cut line with four holes to play at Deere Run but doubled bogeyed the sixth hole, her 15th, and bogeyed the next. She missed the cut by a shot, shooting an even-par 71 instead of the 68 she sported on her belt.

That wasn’t a case of buckling under pressure, though, she said.

“I made a couple of bad decisions coming into the final holes, but I was only 15,” she said. “I can make mistakes when I’m 15.”

She is just a year older now, but, from what 30-year-old PGA Tour vet Johnson could discern during Tuesday morning’s practice session, she is much, much wiser.

“She is wise beyond her years, and her talent is way beyond her years,” Johnson said.

Can she play beyond Friday?

“I would not bet against her, put it that way,” Johnson said.

O’Hair went a step further.

“It’s just a matter of time,” the defending JDC champion said. “And to be quite frank with you, I think she will make the cut this week.”

Wie hopes her familiarity with Deere Run can help in that mission.

“I feel really comfortable on this golf course,” she said of a par-71 track that, at 7,193 yards, is short by PGA Tour standards. “It feels like it’s not really that long. The fairways are pretty forgiving. But it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is how I hit the shots come Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

Notice she didn’t stop at Friday.

The confidence level is plenty high.

Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com.