Michelle Wie West Has a Message for the Next Child Golf Prodigy

Michelle Wie at the HSBC Women’s World Championship at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore in March.

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The woman who set LPGA Tour records when she was a kid is taking a step back to help a new generation of girls gain their own special experiences through the game of golf.

In 2000, the 10-year-old Michelle Wie West became the youngest player ever to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship. Three years later, she became the youngest player to make the cut of an LPGA tournament at the Kraft Nabisco Championship in Southern California and the youngest to do the same in a U.S. Women’s Open—making her an immediate media superstar sensation.

In the run-up to the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at the legendary Pebble Beach Golf Links in July, Wie West announced she would depart the LPGA Tour, listing the Carmel, Calif., event as her only tournament appearance of the season and perhaps her last rounds in the field of any LPGA major. Only 33, she’s moving beyond competitive golf to raise her 2-year-old daughter and to promote the game as a way to encourage girls looking for challenges and guidance.

As one of her first efforts to support girls in the sport, Wie West served as tournament host at the Mizuho Americas Open at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J. That LPGA event invited 24 female junior golfers from the American Junior Golf Association Tour to compete alongside the 120-player LPGA field for their own separate title. That new format marked the first time the AJGA and the LPGA partnered to bring pros and young amateurs together for golf and networking.

With the Open approaching, its 2014 champion sat down with Penta at Pebble Beach to talk about what she hopes to pass on to the oncoming generation of women golfers.

**You have so many opportunities to invest yourself in different charities. You often select causes that involve getting girls, adolescents, and young women into the game of golf. What do you think golf can teach those young people? **

In itself, golf can teach anyone so much. “Show up on time. Be honest and truthful on the course. Navigate the stakes of the game. Realize that you’re never perfect.” And, aside from that, golf is always such a great business and networking tool. So many deals get done on the golf course, and so many friendships are made—business and personal.

What can teenage Michelle Wie of 20 years ago teach the young people your causes work with today?

I would love anyone—and the girls, especially—to take away from my career that there isn’t just one way to success. There are many. In fact, success itself can have many meanings. I want girls to know that they can take whatever course they choose, even if there are people out there telling them it’s not conventional or normal to do so. I hope they do what they want because there are so many ways to get to do what you want to do.

Do players today have opportunities you didn’t have when you were 10 or 12 years old?

I think we live in a time now that’s good and bad. In 2023, there can be more distractions—but you can also choose your plan more clearly. I chose a non-conventional path—choosing to play LPGA Tour events when I was younger. I chose to go to college and still play on tour full time. Today, there could be more opportunities for young people to choose equally unusual paths.

What do you think they can take away from your decision to step away from LPGA Tour competition at the age of 33?

I think it’s never too early and never too late to transition to other stages in your life. I made what was a very difficult personal decision to step away from playing full time, but at the end of the day what’s most important to me, to my parents, and to my husband is doing what makes me content. I hope my daughter understands that and sees me doing the things that reflect what I believe in, and that makes me happy.

On your podcast, “Golf, Mostly,” you and your friend Hally Leadbetter often explore the wider aspects of mental health. How did that become an important focus for you?

Every season on the podcast, we have a mental health episode. I think that people see professional athletes and celebrities as these invincible figures, but it’s important to know that we’re all human. We all deal with the same stuff. Sometimes anxiety or depression can even be magnified because of the position we’re in out there.

How can you take the anxieties you feel as a professional athlete or how you dealt with them and translate that so others can apply what you’ve learned?

Growing up, mental health wasn’t really discussed. When I was wanting to be a professional athlete, I thought I had to be invincible. I thought bleeding was the only way to get there. It was that old mantra of “no pain, no gain.” Now, it’s possible to be the top in your sport or your field and still talk about those kinds of issues, of allowing yourself a mistake.

I want these girls growing up to see and to know it’s OK to be weak sometimes. You don’t have to fake the persona of being untouchable.

**How do you balance the fact that you pushed your childhood self very hard, but you emerged a great success as a result? **

I don’t think I was overly pushed. I made the choice to drive myself as hard as I could to be the best I could be. That required sacrifice, and that’s never something I want to discourage in young people. Working hard and pushing yourself is extremely important.

But, I’d add it’s just as important to be OK with telling those around you, “Hey, I’m not having a good day today. I’m struggling today.” In the past, my younger self would tell everyone I was fine all the time, no matter what—even if that meant taking a cast off an injury before I was really ready. Now, it’s important to me to get that message out to girls and young women that it’s OK to be imperfect.