Appleby: Wie is not good enough
Thursday, 11 Jan 2007 08:57
"She's not ready," says Appleby
Australian golfer Stuart Appleby has claimed Michelle Wie does not yet possess the quality to compete alongside the men on the PGA Tour.
Appleby made the comments ahead of the Sony Open in Hawaii, which starts today, saying 17-year-old Wie had pushed too far, too fast.
"She came five years too early to try to play the men's tour - she should just let it go for now," he said.
"She's not ready. She's certainly not proving anything, except that she can't play with the men at her level right now."
The Sony Open will be Wie's 13th tournament on the men's tour and in her previous 12 appearances the young American has failed to make the cut on 11 occasions.
And the one time that she successfully negotiated the field into the final stages of an event was at the SK Telecom Open in South Korea last May, competing against what was widely regarded as a substandard men's field.
She finished second last at the Casio World Open in Japan in her last outing in late November with a first round score of 81 – her worst-ever performance – and an 80 in round two.