Michelle Wie is not ready to abandon her quest to play in men's tournaments - despite finishing in a red-faced last place in two of them this year.
She made that clear on Wednesday while celebrating her 17th birthday after a tough, up-and-down first year as a professional.
"I'm going to work at it. I'm not going to achieve it overnight and it's going to be a long process. Hopefully I'm going to play a lot of men's events," she said, briefly taking her focus away from Palm Desert, California, where she will be among the 20 top women golfers competing in this week's LPGA Samsung World Championship.
Her sorties into the men's arenas this year could hardly be described as successful.
She missed the cut at the PGA Sony Open in January, withdrew from the John Deere Classic in July due to the heat stroke and then missed the cut when she finished last at 14-over at last month's Lumber Classic, this after also finishing last in her debut on the European Tour in Switzerland
Her record in women's golf this past year has been an entirely different story.
In seven LPGA events the six-foot Hawaiian-born Korean-American had six top-five finishes. Her best result being a second place at July's Evian Masters in France.
In a summary of 2006 which will start the way it finished - with a men's tournament, in this case the Casio World Open in Japan - Wie said: "It was a very hectic year!"
"In your first (professional) year, you're never really ready for it, no matter how much you prepare for it.
"It was hectic, but it was fun. I can't imagine it going another way. It's just the way I imagined it."
E-mail Article 
Print-Friendly
Subscribe to RSS Feed 
Post to del.icio.us
Facebook