Lpga

The recent announcement by Michelle Wie that she plans on attending Stanford beginning next fall will only be meaningful if the teen-age golf sensation also changes her focus and forgets about her fantasy of playing on the PGA Tour someday. Playing in the prescribed number of LPGA events on sponsor's exemptions - she is allowed six - as well as the U.S. Women's Open and Women's British Open should be more than an adequate test for a player who still apparently doesn't want to be a full-time golfer at age 17. Winning this year's LPGA Championship at Bulle Rock in Havre de Grace, where she finished second two years ago and tied for fifth last year, is far more important for Wie's career than trying to make the cut at some second-tier PGA Tour stop - even if it does cost her some money from Nike in bonuses.

WEST POINT, Miss. -- Nancy Lopez remembers the days when she was the LPGA's newest face and, in short time, its biggest star. Back then, playing against legends such as Mickey Wright and future Hall of Famers such as JoAnne Carner was a big deal to Lopez. It was a way to measure whether she had game.Today, as Jenny Chuasiriporn makes her professional debut in the 54th U.S. Women's Open at the Old Waverly Golf Club, the 21-year-old from Timonium will gauge herself against Lopez in much the same manner.

Jenny Chuasiriporn of Timonium shot a final-round 79 yesterday and failed to advance past the first stage of LPGA qualifying school in Rancho Mirage, Calif., after finishing 63rd.It means the former Duke All-American will not go to the final stage of qualifying school next month in Daytona Beach, Fla. More importantly, it means Chuasiriporn, 22, will not play on the LPGA Tour next year. Instead, she will play its developmental Futures Tour.After missing the cut at last month's first-stage competition in Venice, Fla., Chuasiriporn started well at the Mission Hills Country Club earlier this week.

There is a part of Liselotte Neumann that can't believe a decade has passed since her coming-out-of-nowhere victory in the 1988 U.S. Women's Open at Baltimore Country Club. And there is a part of Neumann that can't believe it's only been 10 years."A lot of things have happened," Neumann said last week.Going into this year's Open, which begins today at the Blackwolf Run course in Kohler, Wis., Neumann has won 12 times since she beat Patty Sheehan by three shots here, breaking what was then an Open record at 7-under-par 277.But as much as her victory at Five Farms helped serve as Neumann's introduction to the LPGA Tour, it also heaped pressure on a shy 22-year-old from Finspang, Sweden.

BaseballShortstop McMillan, three-time Gold Glove winner, dead at 68Roy McMillan, whose sure hands earned him the first three Gold Gloves awarded at shortstop, died yesterday. He was 68.McMillan, a Montreal Expos scout, died at Northeast Medical Center in Bonham, Texas, after he collapsed in the morning after awakening, putting on a pot of coffee and smoking his first cigarette of the day.McMillan played from 1951 to 1966, the first 10 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds. His career batting average was .243 with 68 home runs and 594 RBIs.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Chris Johnson loves excellence and loves to see excellence, whether in her golf game, someone else's game, or even some other endeavor.Only in recent years has the 18-year LPGA Tour veteran started to approach this level, after two teachers helped revamp her game.Those lessons paid yesterday, as Johnson made a great up-and-down from behind the 10th green to defeat Leta Lindley on the second extra hole of their playoff for the 43rd annual LPGA Championship at DuPont Country Club.

Beans Kelly still is shaking her head over the latest honor to come her way.A former Lutherville resident, in her 12th year as head coach of women's golf at the University of Georgia, Kelly has been selected the LPGA Coach of the Year by the organization's Teaching and Club Professional Division."

Success hasn't changed Ted Sheftic, and he is the first to say that he genuinely enjoys teaching and providing services for the members of Hanover (Pa.) Country Club, something he has done as head golf professional for the past 25 years.A number of Baltimore area golfers have taken lessons from Sheftic over the years, usually with notable improvement, but the pro's stock took a dramatic leap upward earlier this spring when one of his students, LPGA Tour player Nanci Bowen, captured the Nabisco Dinah Shore tournament.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Laura Davies spent part of last week shuttling back and forth between here and Atlantic City, between gambling on the golf course and betting in the casinos.The 30-year-old from Great Britain admittedly didn't do well during her nightly jaunts, and was a little coy about how many times she went. "More than once, but not more than twice," she said.Davies recouped all of her losses and more here yesterday -- $165,000 to be exact -- by winning the $1.1 million McDonald's LPGA Championship at Du Pont Country Club.

Links Lowdown:Betsy King says it doesn't get any better for her than when she's out on the practice range working on something. "Coming up with a shot is a thrill," she says, "particularly when you're able to then go out and pull it off in a tournament."The last time she was in these parts, Betsy came up with enough shots to last most golfers two lifetimes. Her scorecards read 68-66-67-66 and we're not talking the inaugural Skunk Hollow Invitational here. It was the $1 million LPGA Championship, a major, and King will be back at Bethesda Country Club June 7-13 defending that title.

Nicole Castrale is one of those rare people who truly believes every action in life has a greater purpose attached to it. It's not quite fatalism, exactly. Events aren't predetermined as much as they are the curves in an invisible path. You can't get to the end without a few detours. This philosophy includes everything from missed cuts to sprained ankles. So after shooting a 7-under-par 65 on Thursday at Bulle Rock to grab the first-round lead at the McDonald's LPGA Championship, Castrale had to smile a little as she recalled what happened in 2006.

I went to see Michelle Wie play at Bulle Rock on Thursday because I'm a sucker for drama queens, and there's enough drama in this young woman's life for any reality series you come up with. Just shy of 20 years old, she remains endlessly fascinating to golf fans. She's the child prodigy who has so far failed to deliver on her enormous potential, the sweet-swinging long-hitter - averaging 272 yards on her drives, sixth on the LPGA Tour - who can sometimes seem lost and clueless at this game.

LPGA to require players to speak English by 2009 golf The LPGA Tour will require players to speak English starting in 2009, with players who have been members for two years facing suspension if they can't pass an oral evaluation of English skills. The rule is effective immediately for new players. "Why now? Athletes now have more responsibilities, and we want to help their professional development," deputy commissioner Libba Galloway said. "There are more fans, more media and more sponsors.

Following the example of 53-year-old Greg Norman, who led the Open Championship going into the final nine holes a few weeks ago, LPGA veteran Juli Inkster shot a 7-under-par 65 yesterday to take the first-round lead in the Women's British Open in Sunningdale, England. When Inkster, 48, was 18 years old, she played in her first major, the Women's U.S. Open. She finished tied for 23rd. After plugging along as an outstanding college player at San Jose State, she won her first pro tournament in 1983, and a year later, she was the LPGA's Rookie of the Year.

Michelle Wie's odyssey remains one of the more bizarre sports career stories of all time, as the 18-year-old now tries to recover from a scorecard faux pas with one more shot at - of all things - the men's tour. Last weekend, Wie was actually making good on the promise she flashed as a precocious adolescent, cruising along at 17-under par at an LPGA tournament in Springfield, Ill., when she was disqualified for forgetting to sign her scorecard after the second round. It was a missed opportunity to scatter the dark clouds that have hung over her young career.

N ews item: Golf phenom Michelle Wie was disqualified from the State Farm Classic yesterday for failing to sign her scorecard after the second round. She was one shot off the lead after her third round when LPGA Tour officials notified her of the discrepancy. My take: We live in a golf world where every shot is documented and every score is posted throughout each tournament, yet the LPGA crushes one of its most bankable young stars over an arcane scoring rule that has nothing to do with what happens on the course.

Nearly two years removed from her last major - and three weeks since announcing her retirement - and still four months before her 38th birthday, Annika Sorenstam addressed the media yesterday, quaint and polite as ever. As she prepared for the final McDonald's LPGA Championship of her brilliant career, Sorenstam explained that walking away from the game was made easier knowing that she's leaving LPGA in good hands. "I think the tour is as good as it's ever been," Sorenstam declared. And though she's probably right, I'm not sure it really matters.

Annika Sorenstam followed the legacies of LPGA legends Mickey Wright and Nancy Lopez in being proclaimed by some as the greatest female player in the history of golf. Now Sorenstam is following Wright and Lopez in another way - early retirement. Sorenstam, 37, announced yesterday that her Hall of Fame career will end after this season. The stunning news came two days after Sorenstam got her 72nd tour victory, winning by seven strokes. Saying that she was going to be "stepping away" from competitive golf, Sorenstam has decided to pursue her outside interests while making her private life a priority.

While Tiger Woods' quest for a Grand Slam was nipped in the bud by South African Trevor Immelman at the Masters, a much more quiet supremacy continued elsewhere in the golf world. Lorena Ochoa, the 26-year-old Mexican superstar, was lapping the field at the Corona Championship in Morelia, Mexico. She won the tournament at 25-under-par - 11 strokes better than the second-place finisher. It also qualified her for the LPGA Tour Hall of Fame, although she can't be inducted until she has been on the tour for 10 years - which for her would happen in 2012.

"I guess you could call me a York Road streetcar baby," said LPGA Hall of Famer Carol Mann. "I attended the old Notre Dame Prep, where I played a variety of sports, and was 9 when I started playing golf at the Country Club of Maryland in Towson." Mann, who celebrated her 67th birthday Feb. 3, was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and later moved to Rodgers Forge, where she lived until moving to Chicago with her family in 1955. As a youth, she became one of the top amateur golfers in the country and later attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.