LPGA.com counts down to the end of 2014 with the LPGA Tour's top 14 stories of the year. Join us as we look back at the year's most memorable milestones. Read about Wie’s emergence in Story No. 4.
What was she thinking? Why would she go for that green out of that fairway bunker with a three-shot lead with three to play?
It was surely in your head and you were surely watching when Michelle Wie decided to go for it on her second shot on the 16th at Pinehurst No. 2 at the U.S. Women’s Open. Everyone was wondering: Can the teen prodigy come through at age 24 with her big career break through? Is she going to blow up or is this her moment?
When she fired that hybrid from the fairway bunker into a wire bush, it looked like the former. She couldn’t find her ball initially either. They finally found it deeply buried in the wire bush and she had to take an unplayable. When she blew her bogey putt six feet past the hole, it looked like a very real possibility that she’d head to the 17th tee, a tricky par-3, tied for the lead. That didn’t come to fruition. She calmly drained the double bogey putt, fist pumped and headed to the 17th tee with a one-shot lead over Stacy Lewis, who was already in the clubhouse.
But when Wie needed it most, on the course that had just chewed up and spit out the men at their national championship, she shined, calmly hitting an 8-iron to 20 feet, setting up the shot Golf Channel had as the shot of the year – a winding 20 footer that fell into the back of the hole. Wie fist pumped, then it was as if she realized the gravity of what she’d just done, and she unleashed an even more fiery second fist pump and headed to the 18th tee with a two-shot lead and her chance at a victory walk in front of the entire golfing world.
When that putt dropped on No. 18, she raised her hands, she cried, and her friends rushed on to celebrate the weight of the golfing world dropping off of her shoulders. She’d done it, she’d won a major championship after first bursting on the scene 11 years ago.
A day later she stood at the top of the Empire State Building, holding the U.S. Women’s Open for a photo shoot. She was finally where everyone thought she would be all along – atop the golfing world.
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