Tony Kornhiser on LeBron, Freddy and Michelle.
And in that vein let me digress to speak of the trio of sports prodigies who stand in front of us: Michelle Wie, Freddy Adu and LeBron James. The three of them may have unprecedented talent. As a sportswriter for nearly 35 years I can only think of a few phenoms I’d put in their class: Tiger Woods, Chris Evert, Wayne Gretzky, Jim Ryun, maybe Dwight Gooden, who was electrifying at 19; if we look worldwide I’d include Pele, Boris Becker, Nadia Comaneci.
Part of the fun of sports is ranking people arbitrarily, so here goes: LeBron James is even better than advertised. Of all the high school kids who’ve come into the league since Kevin Garnett, James is the only one who actually looks to make his teammates better. At 19, James might be one of the NBA’s 10 best players already. But at 19 James isn’t that much younger than Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson were when you’d have said the same about them. At 14, Freddy Adu appears to be the Mozart of American soccer (by way of Ghana, of course). But Adu has yet to compete against men. Adu’s big “Wow Factor” came in under-17 competition. For him to do what Michelle Wie did, he’d have to score goals in the World Cup in 2006, when he’s 16.
What Wie did is astonishing, going to the tips and shooting 68 in a PGA tournament against an array of the best golfers in the world. It would be astonishing if a 14-year-old boy had gone to the tips and shot two-under in a PGA tournament. It’s more astonishing that a girl did it. Wie was even-par after two rounds, same as Jim Furyk and Ben Curtis, who last year won a couple of little things I like to call the U.S. Open and British Open. This is like a Little Leaguer getting Nomar and Manny to ground out. Well, no, it’s not like that. I don’t know what it’s like.
Golf is not football, basketball or tennis. It doesn’t reward strength and speed in the same ways. Women can play golf with men, though they usually have to hit longer irons into greens — shots that are harder to stop. But look how impressed folks were when Annika Sorenstam shot 71 in the first round at Colonial last May (she shot 74 in the second round). And Sorenstam is a 33-year-old adult in her golfing prime, with 48 career tournament wins; she’s probably the best woman golfer of all time. Michelle Wie is in ninth grade! I’m not sure we’ve ever seen anything like this. This doesn’t mean Michelle Wie will win the Masters next year, or ever. But it’s not hard to imagine Wie, say at 18, leaping over the LPGA tour and saying, “Howdy, fellas, here I am.”