Michelle Wie West, one in all golf’s most celebrated gamers since she was 10, had breakfast Tuesday morning within the participant eating space on the U.S. Girls’s Open on the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Membership in North Carolina.
“I had somebody come as much as me,” Wie West, 32, mentioned, “saying that they had been named after me.”
She gently rolled her eyes and deadpanned: “In order that made me really feel actually younger. I’m at that section in my life.”
Final week, Wie West announced she was stepping away from aggressive golf after this week’s championship. She has no plans to play one other L.P.G.A. match in 2022. The one different occasion she expects to enter is the 2023 U.S. Girls’s Open at Pebble Seaside Golf Hyperlinks.
She used the phrase “retire” solely as soon as when talking with reporters on Tuesday and conceded that she may change her thoughts. However for Wie West, who contended for main championships shortly after her sixteenth birthday, gained 5 L.P.G.A. occasions, together with the 2014 U.S. Girls’s Open, collected endorsements and prize-money earnings within the tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} and, notably, performed eight instances towards males on the PGA Tour, there was the lilt of finality in her voice.
“It’s one thing I’ve been desirous about for some time,” Wie West mentioned. “It’s been a tremendous journey, and I’m very excited for what occurs subsequent.”
The long run, nonetheless, may look ahead to at the very least one other 10 minutes as Wie West tried to summarize her profession, which, due to her precocious introduction to elite golf, was lived beneath the obsessively brilliant lights of worldwide stardom. Her profession was additionally considerably disrupted by wrist accidents, which triggered her to play intermittently or under no circumstances for lengthy stretches. In June 2020, alongside together with her husband Jonnie West, she grew to become a mum or dad for the primary time with the beginning of the couple’s daughter, Makenna.
“First off, I wish to say I’ve zero regrets in my profession,” she mentioned. “There’s all the time that inkling of wishing I had accomplished extra. However nobody is ever going to be 100% glad.
“I’ve positively had an up-and-down profession, however I’m extraordinarily proud for the resiliency that I’ve proven,” she mentioned. “I’m extraordinarily proud to have achieved the 2 greatest goals that I’ve had — one being graduating from Stanford, and the opposite profitable the U.S. Open.”
Wie West was smiling, laughing and comfortable. Amongst all of the very public moments of her very public profession, this appeared to be a straightforward one, and she or he was joyful to be again within the setting of her signature on-the-course achievement.
“I’m positively giving myself some grace and having fun with this final week,” she mentioned.
For Wie West, whose presence, manifold abilities and towering drives drew comparisons to Tiger Woods, what was left unsaid was her influence on girls’s golf. She by no means addressed the subject instantly nor did she acknowledge her personal substantial affect on the game’s reputation, however when requested what has modified within the girls’s sport within the final 20 years, Wie West was animated.
“Oh, I imply, a lot has modified,” she answered. “Large kudos to the united statesG.A. for actually shopping for into the ladies’s sport and the L.P.G.A. for simply rising and maintain pushing the boundaries.
“When doorways get closed on us, we simply maintain pushing, and I’m simply so happy with everybody on tour and the united statesG.A. for actually shopping for in and setting the extent proper,” she mentioned.
In January, the US Golf Affiliation practically doubled the U.S. Girls’s Open prize cash to $10 million with the winner of this yr’s championship incomes $1.8 million, the richest single payout in girls’s golf.
A yr in the past, solely three girls on the L.P.G.A. tour earned greater than $1.8 million. Whereas the prize cash for the lads’s U.S. Open is $12.5 million, the united statesG.A. chief govt Mike Whan has plans to bump the ladies’s purse to $12 million in a number of years.
The payouts of golf-industry sponsorship contracts awarded to prime males’s golfers proceed to overshadow most of these bestowed on girls.
However on that entrance, Wie West, who final yr joined the L.P.G.A. board of administrators and continues to serve in that capability, had recommendation, from private expertise, for the golfers who will succeed her.
“As feminine athletes, numerous instances we get instructed, ‘Oh, your sponsorship is just price this a lot; you need to solely ask for this a lot,’ ” Wie West mentioned. “We’re form of in that mind-set, and I might encourage feminine youthful athletes coming as much as say, ‘No, I do know my price. I do know what I deserve.’ And ask for extra.”
Requested if that was what she had accomplished — efficiently — she answered: “Sure, for certain.”
Wie West can be an investor in an organization, LA Golf, that she mentioned was pledging to begin new initiatives for ladies golfers with hopes of financially altering the sponsorship panorama.
Within the quick time period, Wie West nonetheless has a match to compete on this week, one which, given her different priorities, she has not ready for as she may need 10 or 20 years in the past.
“Undoubtedly haven’t had the follow schedule that I normally do main as much as U.S. Open,” she mentioned with a smile. “This week, I’m simply soaking all of it in. Simply seeing all of the followers, seeing all of the gamers, strolling the stroll. It’s fairly cool.”
Being a previous champion of the occasion helps Wie West benefit from the expertise, maybe extra meaningfully than anybody would have anticipated. In what was one thing of a shock, she mentioned that with out claiming the U.S. Girls’s Open trophy eight years in the past, there wouldn’t now be an finish in sight to her aggressive profession.
“It’s the one match I wished to win ever since I began taking part in golf,” Wie West mentioned. She then insisted: “If I hadn’t gained the 2014 U.S. Open, I might nonetheless — I positively wouldn’t retire. And I might nonetheless be out right here taking part in and chasing that win. That win means every thing to me.”
