Women’s Golf Can’t Catch a Break: Natalie Gulbis and Michelle Wie Miss the US Open Cut
1-liner, ESPN, Golf, Women's Sports June 17th. 2009, 10:45am
Golf’s golden girls, Natalie Gulbis and Michelle Wie, failed to qualify for next month’s US Open. They missed the cut yesterday by two and one strokes, respectively. NBC must be devastated. Maybe the network will get lucky and another female you’ve never heard of will win a golf major. That always does wonders for ratings.
61 Responses to “Women’s Golf Can’t Catch a Break: Natalie Gulbis and Michelle Wie Miss the US Open Cut”
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June 17th, 2009 at 10:48 AM
Michele Wie makes Danica Patrick look like Mario Andretti
/performance-wise
//why can’t the MSM force-feed us someone with talent every now and then?
June 17th, 2009 at 10:48 AM
Just get all the lady golfers in bikinis.
Problem solved
/chauvinistic pig
June 17th, 2009 at 10:51 AM
If there’s one thing I know about women’s golf, it’s never bet on the white girl
/naked gun’d
June 17th, 2009 at 10:52 AM
Michelle Wie is one of golf’s golden girls? I admit I watch more golf than the casual fan, but her story was played out over a year ago. Jay, the golfer you’re looking for is Morgan Pressel. She can actually play, and pretty much destroyed what was left of Wie’s psyche.
/I watch too much Golf Channel
June 17th, 2009 at 10:53 AM
I disagree.
/realist
June 17th, 2009 at 10:56 AM
I’m not sure I’m ready for a blanket statement like that. Standards are always a good thing.
/shallow chauvinistic pig
June 17th, 2009 at 10:57 AM
I mean, it’s not like she’s finishing 6th. She’s not even qualifying. She fucking sucks. But do you think they’ll ever let it go? Of course not!
June 17th, 2009 at 10:58 AM
her parents are assholes and shes a stuck up pig from what ive heard
June 17th, 2009 at 10:59 AM
Don’t be mean to her. She hurt her wrist.
/when she was about to get kicked off the tour
June 17th, 2009 at 10:59 AM
hasn’t gulbis actually won a tournament? i could be wrong. but i know that wie has never won shit professionally. so who gives a fuck if she makes a tournament or not?
June 17th, 2009 at 11:03 AM
How old is Gilbus?
June 17th, 2009 at 11:04 AM
wilbon likes to suck her dick
June 17th, 2009 at 11:04 AM
So it’s not even like 3 spots were up for grabs. 30 nobodies beat her.
And, arkbadger, they have too much invested in her to just drop her. So instead of admitting they were wrong and apologize for wasting our time, they’re going to overemphasize the trainwreck her career has become. They’ll turn her into John Daly without the booze and drugs and gambling.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:05 AM
26, Bo
June 17th, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Wie is the walking, talking reason the LPGA has an age restriction. If she had played in college, then the tour, instead of trying to play with the men, she might have had a shot at being good. It’s unfortunate, she is/was really talented. I can’t believe she’s even a story anymore. It’s no surprise she didn’t qualify for the Open. Gulbis not qualifying is a bit of a shock, but it’s not like Paula Creamer or Pressel missed out.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Someone named Pak, Park, or Kim will win.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:09 AM
Giggity
June 17th, 2009 at 11:09 AM
And screw NBC. I don’t feel sorry for them at all. Maybe if they and the LPGA marketed the right people, this wouldn’t be an issue. younglefty knows there are women out there who could be marketable and actually have talent. And television executives can turn anybody they want to into stars if they try hard enough. Look at Susan Boyle if you don’t believe me.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:10 AM
gulbis can make it up to dick ebersol by appearing in (another) nbc (sur)reality series.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:19 AM
From Dan Shanoff three years ago:
It’s like he’s got a crystal ball!!!
/Shanoff is a fucking retard
June 17th, 2009 at 11:24 AM
So, in the column that TBL writes for the Metro every Wednesday (basically a rehash of various posts), he referred to Michelle Wie as the best female golfer. I started cackling, and the dude next to me on the train looked at me like I was crazy.
Michelle Wie is irrelevant.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:31 AM
June 17th, 2009 at 11:32 AM
Wow, nice find jim. I love people that analyze golf like Shanoff did there. They have no clue. There are plenty of people the world over that can hit all the shots, and know the game well enough to play top tier golf. The difference between those people and professionals has less to do with talent and more to do with the mental side. Like Bobby Jones said, there’s golf, and then there’s tournament golf. Wie never had a chance because the mental aspect of her game was never developed. That’s what happens when you go out there trying to beat Vijay when you should be worrying about being the low medalist at your state championship tournament.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:33 AM
@JIM: Sounds like a spencer article about Sergio
June 17th, 2009 at 11:38 AM
As a female golfer who does actually follow it, Wie just pisses me off. All the hype when she hasn’t done crap. The LPGA also sucks because they don’t promote the women that could bring people to watch. Look, I know you guys don’t want to watch someone named Pak, or some of the rather larger women play. Nothing wrong with that.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:41 AM
Shes 19.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:47 AM
She’s also done.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Shes 19.
She’s also done.
She’s also never won anything in her life, which is why she’s done. You have to LEARN how to win at every level (juniors, college/amateur, then pro).
She has to compete and learn how to win against women (thank God not men anymore) who all have learned how to do win on the first two, and many who have learned on all three levels.
Like going from 1st grade to college with nothing in between.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:04 PM
Not sure about this… to me, golf is about competing against the course. If you’re playing at Augusta, you’re playing at Augusta- no matter the age or gender of competition. You have to dominate the course to win- if you shoot a low score, nothing about the competition matters except whether they shot lower.
@lefty: 19 and done?? Do women golfers have the same peak age as tennis players?! Still time to figure it out.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Not sure about this… to me, golf is about competing against the course. If you’re playing at Augusta, you’re playing at Augusta- no matter the age or gender of competition. You have to dominate the course to win- if you shoot a low score, nothing about the competition matters except whether they shot lower.
@bigbeb: I disagree. All tour players can play. What a lot of them can’t do is play under pressure, and that pressure is self-induced by the other competitors trying to win also. A guy could go out at Augusta by himself on a Tuesday and “play the course” and shoot 64. That same guy is now standing on 13 tee with a chance to win his 1st major on Sunday w/ 30,000 people there and 8 players within 2 shots of him. He can say he’s going to just “play the course”, but he’s fighting the demons in his head also.
As much as sports is muscle memory, it’s also the mental abiliity to block the negative thoughts out as well as have the positive thoughts of success that allow you to win
June 17th, 2009 at 12:27 PM
bigben – I disagree with you wholeheartedly. It absolutely matters who you’re competing against. Wie was too busy playing on sponsor’s exemptions on the men’s tour to learn how to win. It’s the mental thing I talked about before. So, instead of learning how to beat other 16 year old girls, she learned how to lose to older men. Not a ton of valuable experience there. Fast forward a bit to the 2005 US Women’s Amateur, and that was the beginning of the end. She got to see up close who she’d be competing with for the rest of her career, and that was it. Yeah, done at 19. Once it goes mentally, it’s gone (see also, Love III, Davis vs. Woods, Tiger).
June 17th, 2009 at 12:29 PM
Gonna agree with JPQ and the young lefthander on this one.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:31 PM
19 year old misses qualifying for the US Open by 1 stroke.
If you are claiming she lost it mentally than I might by that, but she has about 15 years to find it.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:35 PM
michelle wie is the only female golfer i’d pay to watch play.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Definitely agree with this. But my take is there are mental aspects involved in many sports, but not many sports are more individual than golf in terms of how you score, except maybe bowling. The mental toughness is involved in every sport, but golf’s competition isn’t tangible, only mental outside of the course.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:41 PM
I’d pay to watch Anna Rawson play.
/with my balls
June 17th, 2009 at 12:42 PM
golf’s competition isn’t tangible? if 144 guys are going for the lowest score, and the lowest score wins, how is that not tangible?
June 17th, 2009 at 12:43 PM
touche clown.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Are we talking tournament here, or like a Monday Pro-Am? I’d go with no way in hell on the former, and probably on the latter, as far as paying to see her play.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:49 PM
If you are claiming she lost it mentally than I might by that, but she has about 15 years to find it.
I’m not saying she will NEVER succeed, because her raw natural ability is so high. It’s just her parents built the fire and Nike provided the match to what could have been (still could…maybe) the greatest women’s player ever.
I’m sure her $50-$100 million in the bank doesn’t hurt, but you need to build a foundation of competing (and winning) from 10-14, 15-18, 18-22 (or above) to see great success.
http://www.usjunioram.org/history/past-champions/index.html
look at the names from each year. You may recognize a great many, but see how many you never heard of. Shows how tough it can be, as the names get thinned out the higher you go, especially when you haven’t learned how to win.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:51 PM
she has the best swing in golf and i mean it. who cares about how she scores or anything…women’s golf is damn near impossible to watch. at least wie is exciting and brings a different element than the rest of the cookie-cutter, 20 minute pre-shot routine female golfers on the LPGA tour.
i could care less that annika and lorena ochoa would beat wie by 20 strokes in a tourney. if i wanted to watch real tourney golf, id watch the PGA.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:52 PM
The course is tangible- the competition is mental. Everyone is playing the course and the best score wins. That simple.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:01 PM
Ahem. Not. A. Golfer. Sorry dude, but this is getting out of hand.
spencer – Oh yeah her swing is great, no doubt. But if I wanted to watch a golfer with an awesome swing, and not care about how they played, I’d watch Adam Scott. At least there’d be something else to do when I got tired of watching him miss putts.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:04 PM
that’s why i had to qualify my answer…id pay to see men’s competition, even a nationwide tour event. but the product the LPGA puts out there is devastatingly awful and wie is the only diamond in that pile of dung worth giving a shit about.
i wouldn’t be shocked if the LPGA is pretty much gone in 5 years. they’re damn near bankrupt and run by the worst commish in the history of sports.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:33 PM
Incorrect and doesn’t have anything to do with my stance on the compeition.
A better statement is that I am not a good golfer, but I think it’s just this mental block I have and not the flaws in my swing.
/3.5 putt average
June 17th, 2009 at 1:36 PM
see, that’s the problem tho. you can have two guys play the course on one singular day, and your theory would be correct. but when you play over 4 days and the lowest aggregate scores win, it’s about the players, not the course.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:42 PM
Why are some courses more suitable to a particular player’s game than others? Or do you buy that?
You can have the same field, yet based on the course you have a different set of scores. The competition (players) remain the same but the order in which they finish differs because of the course.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:43 PM
Our definition of golfer probably differs. I have separate categories for golfers and people who play golf. Let’s just say that 90% of the people that play in your work tournament are people who play golf.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:43 PM
I played 18 with spence and he killed me. Once he broke out his belly putter, it was GAME OVAH!
June 17th, 2009 at 1:47 PM
totally buy that. but it’s the same in football too…some teams (i.e. warm weather and dome teams) can’t cut it in shitty weather. but…
…this isn’t necessarily cut and dry.
tiger woods won in impressive fashion at southern hills despite the fact that the things that make him great (his length and long irons) are negated because of doglegs and shotmaking premiums.
zach johnson, a horse for any short course, contended at quail hollow and won the masters when augusta was playing close to 7,600 yards for the week.
angel cabrera won a us open at a course that would seemingly favor a control player and he’s anything but.
phil mickelson won at colonial last year and riviera this year, which is a complete control course (if it’s named hogan’s alley, you play like hogan, i.e. control, control, control) and mickelson is anything but a controlled player.
the course is the setting, the field is the competition. always and forever.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:48 PM
lollercaust.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:49 PM
Poetic enough for me to agree.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:49 PM
Why are some courses more suitable to a particular player’s game than others? Or do you buy that?
from #30 before…
As much as sports is muscle memory, it’s also the mental abiliity to block the negative thoughts out as well as have the positive thoughts of success that allow you to win
guys repeatedly play well at certain courses/types of courses/types of conditions because they have experienced success there, or failed because they haven’t. Texans are good “wind players”, Tom Watson was a good “mudder”, Johnny Miller and Mickelson play great in the desert, etc
Like younglefty and spencer said, we don’t agree, and you won’t be convinced.
June 17th, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Are you selling a book on the healing powers of positive thinking? I’ll take 2.
So you agree then that the course is the competition for them mentally? And not just who they’re playing?
June 17th, 2009 at 2:03 PM
here’s the point you need to understand…
the score to beat is posted BY A PLAYER, not the course.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:13 PM
spencer, it’s not worth it dude. He’s not going to agree with you or even understand. That said, bigben, who they’re playing causes the mental stress which is more prominent on, let’s say number 11 at Augusta, than on 15 at Augusta. So, the course plays a factor, but if there weren’t anyone else out there, 11 would be a piece of cake.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:39 PM
Wow. She’s still only 19 and if I’m not mistaken she already has a couple of top 3 finishes this year. To say she’s done seems a bit short-sighted.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Anyone who’s a decent golfer knows that certain courses setup well for certain people and other courses don’t. Of the regular courses I’ve played over the years, there’s one rated 73.9 (meaning it’s hard as hell) that I consistently shoot better scores on than another course that’s rated 69.5… the harder course just suits my eye and my game while the “easier” course doesn’t.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:50 PM
no doubt.
but that’s not tournament golf.
June 17th, 2009 at 2:59 PM
No chauvinism in this except to the ninnies — just a straight up dude like most of us on here. Ok here are Britney’s painted tits again whilst we are at it NSFW:
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/xs/346063/Britney-Spears-topless-photos-First-ever-topless-pictures-of-Britney-taken-on-raunchy-shoot-for-video-of-Gimme-More.html
June 17th, 2009 at 3:51 PM
Agreed. Of course, a course cannot play itself. In my opinion I feel the course determines the score more than the competition.
I have agreed already with points on this. But I do apologize for not being intellectually capable of understanding your opinion on this quantum physics topic we’ve been discussing.