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Well maybe not Randy, but moss problems, or is it more problems. So what's wrong with this drop aside from dropping in the wrong area or whatever she did at the Samsung tournament...
Michelle makes the big bucks. She is young. She wants to dominate the golf world. But, my fair lady, you must know the rules! And fire your caddy just because you have a Randy Moss moment? Is the heat getting to you and just walk off the field? Maybe more in common with Randy than I thought...
Apparently Johnston told her not to touch the moss.
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/golf/story/0,,1838234,00.html
It's top shelf for fine Sherri
Dai Davies at Royal Lytham & St Annes
Sunday August 6, 2006
Observer
Sherri Steinhauer, the leader of the Women's British Open, will spend much of today's final round pretending that she is not, in fact, in contention for the title.
Steinhauer's six-under par 66 gave her a seven-under-par total of 209 and a lead of three over Sophie Gustafson , Lorena Ochoa, Juli Inkster and Karen Stupples, all tied for second on four under.
Steinhauer, who won this event in 1998 and 1999 when it was not regarded as a major championship, confessed that she would be nervous. 'I hope I can keep myself under control,' she said. 'I'll keep talking to myself, telling myself I'm not in the position I'm in. Hopefully, it'll work.'
Michelle Wie, dressed all in black as if mourning a week of missed opportunities, failed to take advantage of a still start to the day when scoring conditions were ideal.
But Wie, with birdies at the 4th and 16th holes, also three-putted the 5th and 11th for a level-par round of 72, making no sort of move at a time when others such as Ochoa, Cristie Kerr and Natalie Gulbis were getting round in 65, 66 and 67 respectively and moving into contention.
Wie has merely been contentious. Her ignorance of the rule regarding bunker play, as displayed on Friday, was astounding, leading, as it did, to a two-stroke penalty. Wie's club swept back a piece of moss lying directly behind her ball, so disturbing the sand, and the 16-year-old said afterwards that she thought she was entitled to do that. But it emerged yesterday that caddie Greg Johnston had told Wie that she could not remove the moss by picking it up, so why she thought she could remove it by sweeping it away with her club in the course of playing a shot is mystifying. Furthermore, in all of her practice swings she was extremely careful not to disturb the moss, giving the impression she knew she should not.
Perhaps the most amazing thing of all is her ignorance of the whole subject. One denizen of the press tent revealed yesterday that he has a daughter currently sailing through the various courses, Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc, presented by the Young Masters Golf organisation. She passed her Bronze level aged eight, learning, among other things, that thou shalt not ground thine club in a bunker.
It is such an elementary rule that it could be argued that Wie, whose fee for appearing in tournaments outside America can be as much as the US$1.5million paid by the Casio World Open in Japan, has no right not to know it. Imagine the sense of grievance if a sponsor, having coughed up millions of dollars for the Wie entourage (Ma, Pa, caddie, coach and player) to play in their event, saw her miss the cut, or get disqualified, because she did not know a basic rule of golf.
On Friday night, when Wie was told of her infraction, she threw a teenager's tantrum which, amusingly enough, cannot be officially punished because she is not a member of any tour. She recovered quickly enough to say, when asked if she would go and read the rules, that they were not 'great reading material', which got a laugh but missed the point.
She is still at school, still of an age where unappealing subjects have to be studied and the incentive in this instance is both financial - penalty shots cost money - and the maintenance of a good reputation.
Her next appearance on this side of the Atlantic will be in the European Masters, at Crans-sur-Sierre, a European men's tour event. The debate as to whether she should continue to play in these tournaments gets ever fiercer as she continues not to win women's events.
At the John Deere Classic, Daniel Chopra, a contestant, said: 'She has the opportunity to become the greatest woman player history has ever known and she's wasting it by not playing the LPGA tour.'
But B.J., Michelle's father, summed it up when he said that the critics simply did not 'fully understand the capitalistic market mechanism'. What cannot be said is that B.J. himself does not understand it.
Since his daughter turned professional on 11 October 2005, one informed estimate of her total income is $18 million. Sony and Nike have both contributed $5 million each; sufficient, surely, for a few dreary hours in front of the rulebook.
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