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Paolo Uggetti, ESPN
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — There was no different manner it might have ended.
After a dark week at Pebble Seashore, the place Michelle Wie West struggled to seek out the underside of the cup, the 30-foot par putt on the 18th inexperienced — the ultimate one in every of her profession — had no cause to drop. And but, the ball saved rolling, then trickling and ultimately, falling.
All Wie West might do was giggle. This wasn’t precisely the ending she envisioned — one the place she lasted till the weekend, performed properly and possibly even contended at her closing U.S. Girls’s Open in her closing event ever — however it was the ending she received and yet another lasting reminiscence in a profession that has spanned a long time.
“The sport is a humorous sport,” Wie West mentioned after posting a two-day rating of 14 over par (79-79) and lacking the reduce by 8 pictures. “Making that lengthy putt on 18 undoubtedly was a sweeter sendoff.”
Wie West mentioned she had been combating feelings for the reason that first tee Friday, holding again tears and awaiting the ultimate moments that may arrive. As she stood on the 18th tee behind her husband and caddie, Jonnie West, she took a couple of deep breaths and held again tears simply earlier than launching her final tee shot into the fading mild.
Subsequent to her, three-time U.S. Girls’s Open winner Annika Sorenstam, who additionally was probably enjoying in her closing main championship, requested her son to take an image of her and her husband and caddie, Mike, on the 18th tee.
Everybody was attempting to carry on to the second a bit longer.
“It undoubtedly feels surreal proper now,” Wie West mentioned. “It appears like nothing has modified and every thing has modified .”
Then, the stroll down the 18th fairway and as much as the inexperienced got here. As Sorenstam’s son walked with the group, Wie West sought out her mother, who was pushing a stroller with Wie West’s 3-year-old daughter, Makenna, in it. She was sleeping.
After Wie West made the lengthy putt and walked off the inexperienced to a different ovation and a bouquet of flowers from USGA CEO Mike Whan, Makenna wakened. Wie West instantly swooped her up and carried her from interview to interview, her presence serving as one other reminder of the life Wie West was now selecting after a long time of dedication to the game that had introduced her right here, 2,400 miles throughout the ocean from her native Honolulu.
“I might have liked to have performed higher, however this entire expertise was really exceptional,” Wie West mentioned. “It was nice to have my closing spherical right here at Pebble Seashore.”
The setting befitted a storied profession marked by many historic firsts that Wie amassed over her years within the sport. Although she had introduced her retirement forward of final yr’s U.S. Girls’s Open at Pine Needles, Wie West was not going to overlook out on a finale that coalesced Friday on some of the well-known holes on this planet with a memorable closing shot that may play in spotlight reels to come back.
“The Public Hyperlinks was the primary event I performed on the mainland,” Wie West mentioned final yr. “And the U.S. Open was undoubtedly going to be final.”
That newbie Public Hyperlinks event in 2000 was Wie West’s first historic endeavor into the golf world. She was 10 years previous. Two years later she grew to become the youngest ever to qualify for an LPGA Tour occasion. A yr later, she received the Public Hyperlinks at 13, turning into the youngest girl or man to win a USGA occasion. How did she comply with that up? By enjoying in a males’s occasion (the 2004 Sony Open through a sponsor’s exemption), capturing 68 and lacking the reduce by solely a stroke.
Wie West went on to play in a complete of six PGA Tour occasions, and whereas she turned professional in 2005 — prompting an onslaught of main sponsorships and worldwide consideration — she wasn’t in a position to achieve LPGA membership till 2009 as a result of her age. By then she had already performed in six U.S. Girls’s Opens and 16 main championships and had seven top-10 finishes to her title.
From 2009 on, Wie West received solely 5 instances on the LPGA Tour, together with the 2014 U.S. Girls’s Open at Pinehurst No. 2, which represented the head of her lengthy profession. That yr was the primary time the ladies performed the U.S. Open on a venue the boys additionally performed the identical yr.
This yr, the importance of an extended overdue ladies’s main at Pebble Seashore represented a becoming ending for Wie, who was not solely a trailblazer for girls’s golf but additionally a phenomenon who pushed the sport to suppose outdoors its preconceived boundaries. Her entrance into not simply the ladies’s golf world, however the males’s too, required not only a boldness that Wie West mentioned Tuesday she hopes is a part of her lasting legacy, but additionally a burden that nobody particular person ought to carry. And but in some ways, due to her larger-than-life entrance into the game, Wie West did.
It is why though the on-course outcomes might have by no means matched the hype and anticipation that surrounded her in her early years, her affect on the sport remains to be palpable. A number of of the gamers on this yr’s event have damaged her information after qualifying or enjoying in tournaments at even youthful ages than she did.
“I am happy with being fearless at instances and simply doing what felt proper,” Wie West mentioned Tuesday of her profession. “I hope that I encourage a variety of different ladies to make daring and fearless selections and selections of their careers, as properly.”
Although Wie West is leaving the sport — she made a degree to say she probably will not contact her golf equipment for some time — she did say her household is already planning a visit again to Pebble Seashore in some unspecified time in the future. Her subsequent spherical will not give her the adrenaline she mentioned she is going to miss, however it should remind her of one thing else she expressed after her spherical Friday.
“I nonetheless love the sport of golf,” she mentioned. “However yeah, it is going to be unusual. It is undoubtedly an odd feeling. Nevertheless it feels nice.”
For now, although, there have been no extra putts to hit, no extra interviews to present. Because the solar lastly appeared and gave Pebble Seashore a few of its glow, Wie West picked up her daughter, stood subsequent to her husband and started strolling away. The remainder of her life had formally begun.
