Let her grow, let her grow, let her grow

I'm sitting here with a copy of Golf World open to the Wie story. The pullquote on the story is from Paula Creamer: 

It's sad we have to do that. The LPGA shouldn't get involved with players on the golf course unless it is a ruling or something like that.

Well, you're close, Paula. The LPGA (or the PGA or the USGA) isn't supposed to be involved on the course even for "rulings." They do so because they don't want you to embarrass yourselves.  Brief digression: a few years ago, a PGA player got fined for slow play when he held up his round because he didn't get a ruling -- it was about a drop, if I recall correctly, and he was looking for some kind of edge. He complained loudly enough to the writers to get a column written about it. I never saw a followup, but I'd wager that as a result of his whinging he managed to overturn the fine. I suppose it should be considered a small victory that he got nicked in the first place. Because of course, the point is, Paula and Jeff, that golf is different because one of the rules is you have to know the rules (6-1: "The player and his caddie are responsible for knowing the Rules.")  Well, at least it used to be different.  I'm not the first to point out another queasy aspect to the Wie episode -- that the very best thing that could have happened to Michelle Wie, teenager, would very likely have been for her to have blown herself out of the season. No one should doubt why she might be better off just leaving the game alone for a while -- but if you do, here's a very obvious reason: everything about her play suggested she was neither mentally nor physically ready to compete.  But apparently no one around Michelle Wie thinks it's important for her youth, or what remains of it, to resemble to a typical adolescence. Instead, her agent, her parents, and the LPGA feel it's more important that they cover their own butts in the guise of looking out for their client/daughter/leading television personality.  Unfortunately, Michelle Wie simply seems to be a pawn in other peoples' games. When you get down to it, this was an instance of an agent probably fearing that he'd be blamed for not doing his job -- and an LPGA desperate to preserve one of its more brilliant and attractive stars. The greed of everyone around her trumped the rules, and probably her own best interests.