Wie's win huge for golf

Tiger Woods is coming back. Roughly three months after taking his last competitive swings, the 14-time major champion is returning to action at this week's tournament at Congressional Country Club in suburban Washington, D.C. That the tournament benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation might be motivation, boredom might be the impetus, or maybe it's just watching a season that was supposed to have so much promise pass him by while he withered away on his sectional sofa in Jupiter, Florida. On the heels of a five-win 2013, this was supposed to be the year he returned to the winner's circle in major championships.

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In any other context, Woods' return to action would be the top story in golf. But, forgive me for thinking that not to be the case, as 350 miles to the south, the most significant development in golf this season took place exactly one week after Martin Kaymer laid waste to the U.S. Open Championship.

Michelle Wie won for the fourth time in her LPGA career, taking home the most prestigious trophy in women's golf when she captured the United States Women's Open at Pinehurst by two strokes over Stacy Lewis, the world's No. 1 ranked player.

We've been hearing about Wie for the better part of two decades. She was the youngest player ever to qualify for a USGA championship – the women's amateur public links at age 10 in 2000 (a record that stood for almost 10 years). She was the youngest player ever to qualify for an LPGA Tour event – she was 12 when she made the field in an official event in her native Hawaii. Then, the following year, she became the youngest player to ever make the cut in an LPGA event – a major, no less – and after a 3rd-round 66, actually played in the final group of the 2003 Nabisco Championship as an amateur. That she shot a final–round 76 and finished in a 9th place tie is secondary to the story.

She was 13 years old.

Oh, and that was 11 years ago!

Wie moves the needle unlike any other star on the LPGA tour. She is the sport's most recognizable star. She is the most marketable. She's the top attraction on at least two continents – and maybe three – as the LPGA is the most popular professional sport in her parents' native South Korea. Women's golf has spent the last few years trying to recover from the bottom falling out.

Until 2012, the LPGA tour hadn't seen an American named player of the year since Hall of Famer Beth Daniel in 1994. And, while the likes of Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb, Lorena Ochoa and Yani Tseng were fabulous players and great examples for young players, without successful American stars it was growing increasingly difficult for the tour to be based in the United States.

However, led by Wie and Stacy Lewis, Lexi Thompson, Paula Creamer and others, the American contingent of female stars has began to swing the pendulum back in their direction. This is in no way meant as a slight towards the wildly successful European and Asian stars. From Inbee Park to Suzanne Pettersen to Shanshen Feng, the first Chinese player on the LPGA Tour, women's golf is easily the most international of professional sports.

But, in this country, as great as all of these international stars are – almost all of them fluent and comfortable with the English language, by the way – we needed to see American women return to the top of the leaderboards. Two major championships down in the 2014 season, it's mission accomplished. 19-year old Lexi Thompson struck first at the Nabisco Championship earlier in the spring and now Wie, who has crammed a career's worth of experience into her 24 years on earth.

Today, Wie is a college graduate, a Stanford graduate to be more specific, where she could not be on the golf team due to the fact that she turned pro years before reaching college. She's as well-adjusted, well-liked and well-known as any three players on the LPGA tour. She's everything child stars aren't.

Make no mistake about it, Wie was a super star a long time before she earned it. When you're that good that young it's impossible to not be. She's also had to overcome some of the questionable decisions in the early stages of her career. Playing in PGA and Web.com Tour events before accomplishing much of anything made it easy for the critics to question her ability and who was making the decisions.

We all make decisions and elect to take paths in our lives that we would like to have back – a "mulligan" if you will. Maybe Michelle would do things differently regarding her pre-teenage career. Maybe playing against the men before she'd learned to beat the women was a mistake. But, maybe it made her stronger and better as a player and a person.

Sometimes it's not that you won but how you won. Sunday, with three holes to play on a baked out, trampoline of a layout at Donald Ross' famed No. 2 course, Wie nearly gave it all back on the 16th hole. After driving into a fairway bunker and putting her second shot into bush well short of the green, Wie took an unplayable lie and turned a pleasant stroll to the clubhouse into a dog fight down the stretch. She even needed to roll in a four-footer for double bogey just to stay in the lead.

Then came the smile, and a bit of a laugh, at the situation and you knew that this was not the nervous teenager who'd failed to come through in the toughest moments in years past. This grown woman put her tee shot into the middle of the green on the par-3 17th and rolled in the birdie putt for a triple fist pump and a two-shot lead and got to enjoy a stress-free stroll up the 72nd fairway after all.

Maybe all of the decisions, good and bad, were worth it. Michelle Wie might be the most talented player on the LPGA tour, but she stared her past in the face and won with guts. As a result, golf was the real winner at Pinehurst.