36 days until golf: Michelle Wie West returns to winner's circle in style
The PGA Tour plans to restart its season June 11 after halting due to the coronavirus pandemic. Each day until then, we'll highlight key moments, people, or facts relating to where we are in the countdown.
Nearly four years after Michelle Wie West's last victory on the LPGA at the 2014 U.S. Women's Open, the former child prodigy nailed a 36-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the HSBC Women's World Championship.
Take another look 👀—>@themichellewie’s winning putt at the HSBC Women’s World Championship! #HWWC 💪 pic.twitter.com/eM362H5i7J
— LPGA (@LPGA) March 4, 2018
"It's been a tough journey since 2014," Wie West said afterward, according to Golf Channel's Randall Mell. “It's been kind of well-documented. I've had some injuries, had a really bad year, just lost a lot of confidence. I'm just really proud of myself for pulling myself out of it."
The win in Singapore marked Wie West's fifth on the LPGA, a number many would consider low for one of the most popular golfers of all time.
Wie West's rise to fame started at a very early age, which added immense pressure that followed her throughout her career. At the age of 10, she became the youngest to qualify for the USGA Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship. Two years later, she became the youngest to qualify for an LPGA event.
By then, the golf world had noticed. Wie West received a sponsor's exemption into the PGA Tour's 2004 Sony Open in her home state of Hawaii. She only missed the cut by one and beat a number of professionals at the age of 14. She played in another seven PGA Tour events but couldn't make a cut.
In the end, Wie West's injury-riddled career never lived up to the high expectations placed on her before she was a teenager. She's since stepped away from professional golf for an indefinite amount of time and is expecting her first child with husband Jonnie West in the summer of 2020.