At the U.S. Women’s Open, Michelle Wie West Reflects on an ‘Amazing Journey’ & More News Here

Michelle Wie West, certainly one of golf’s most celebrated gamers since she was 10, had breakfast Tuesday morning in the participant eating space at the U.S. Women’s Open at the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in North Carolina.

“I had someone come up to me,” Wie West, 32, mentioned, “saying that they were named after me.”

She gently rolled her eyes and deadpanned: “So that made me feel really young. I’m at that phase in my life.”

Last week, Wie West introduced she was stepping away from aggressive golf after this week’s championship. She has no plans to play one other L.P.G.A. event in 2022. The solely different occasion she expects to enter is the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

She used the phrase “retire” solely as soon as when talking with reporters on Tuesday and conceded that she might change her thoughts. But 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. Women’s Open, collected endorsements and prize-money earnings in the tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} and, notably, performed eight instances in opposition to males on the PGA Tour, there was the lilt of finality in her voice.

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Wie West mentioned. “It’s been an amazing journey, and I’m very excited for what happens next.”

The future, nevertheless, might watch for a minimum of one other 10 minutes as Wie West tried to summarize her profession, which, due to her precocious introduction to elite golf, was lived underneath the obsessively vibrant lights of worldwide stardom. Her profession was additionally considerably disrupted by wrist accidents, which triggered her to play intermittently or in no way for lengthy stretches. In June 2020, alongside together with her husband Jonnie West, she grew to become a father or mother for the first time with the delivery of the couple’s daughter, Makenna.

“First off, I want to say I have zero regrets in my career,” she mentioned. “There’s always that inkling of wishing I had done more. But no one is ever going to be 100 percent satisfied.

“I have definitely had an up-and-down career, but I’m extremely proud for the resiliency that I’ve shown,” she mentioned. “I’m extremely proud to have achieved the two biggest dreams that I’ve had — one being graduating from Stanford, and the other winning the U.S. Open.”

Wie West was smiling, laughing and comfy. Among all the very public moments of her very public profession, this appeared to be an straightforward one, and she or he was joyful to be again in the setting of her signature on-the-course achievement.

“I’m definitely giving myself some grace and enjoying this last week,” she mentioned.

For Wie West, whose presence, manifold abilities and towering drives drew comparisons to Tiger Woods, what was left unsaid was her affect on girls’s golf. She by no means addressed the matter instantly nor did she acknowledge her personal substantial affect on the sport’s reputation, however when requested what has modified in the girls’s sport in the final 20 years, Wie West was animated.

“Oh, I mean, so much has changed,” she answered. “Huge kudos to the U.S.G.A. for really buying into the women’s sport and the L.P.G.A. for just growing and keep pushing the boundaries.

“When doors get closed on us, we just keep pushing, and I’m just so proud of everyone on tour and the U.S.G.A. for really buying in and setting the level right,” she mentioned.

In January, the United States Golf Association practically doubled the U.S. Women’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. While the prize cash for the males’s U.S. Open is $12.5 million, the U.S.G.A. chief govt Mike Whan has plans to bump the girls’s purse to $12 million in a couple of years.

The payouts of golf-industry sponsorship contracts awarded to high males’s golfers proceed to overshadow most of these bestowed on girls.

But 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 female athletes, a lot of times we get told, ‘Oh, your sponsorship is only worth this much; you should only ask for this much,’ ” Wie West mentioned. “We’re kind of in that mind-set, and I would encourage female younger athletes coming up to say, ‘No, I know my worth. I know what I deserve.’ And ask for more.”

Asked if that was what she had executed — efficiently — she answered: “Yes, for sure.”

Wie West can also be an investor in an organization, LA Golf, that she mentioned was pledging to begin new initiatives for girls golfers with hopes of financially altering the sponsorship panorama.

In the quick time period, Wie West nonetheless has a event to compete on this week, one which, given her different priorities, she has not ready for as she might need 10 or 20 years in the past.

“Definitely haven’t had the practice schedule that I usually do leading up to U.S. Open,” she mentioned with a smile. “This week, I’m just soaking it all in. Just seeing all the fans, seeing all the players, walking the walk. It’s pretty cool.”

Being a previous champion of the occasion helps Wie West get pleasure 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. Women’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 tournament I wanted to win ever since I started playing golf,” Wie West mentioned. She then insisted: “If I hadn’t won the 2014 U.S. Open, I would still — I definitely wouldn’t retire. And I would still be out here playing and chasing that win. That win means everything to me.”