Her golf game has developed just like every expected. Only some 10 years later.
Multiple media outlets reported Saturday that former child prodigy Michelle Wie is tied for the third-round lead at the Kraft Nabisco Championship - one of the four majors on the LPGA tour.
Wie is tied with Lexi Thompson, the current budding LPGA star, at 10-under 206. They lead Se Ri Pak and Charley Hull by two strokes heading into the final round.
It's the first major tournament in which Wie has shared the lead after three rounds since the 2006 U.S. Women's Open, the Golf Channel reported.
As such, Wie can be forgiven for being apprehensive entering the final round at the Kraft.
"I'm nervous," the 24-year-old Wie said. "I probably won't sleep that well tonight. You want something so badly. I've dreamed about this all my life, so I'm just trying to not think about it so much. I'm just trying to think it's a normal Sunday."
Wie was the youngest player ever to qualify for the Women's U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship at age 10 in 2000. At age 11, she became the youngest to qualify for an LPGA event, the Takefuji Classic in Wie's home state of Hawaii.
It was 11 years ago that Wie became the youngest player to make an LPGA cut at the Kraft Nabisco Championship. She shot a third-round 66 to tie for the amateur record for a women's major championship. The round allowed her to play in the final group at the Kraft.
Wie finished tied for third at the 2006 U.S. Women's Open and had begun to receive exemptions to play in men's events. By the end of the year, however, Wie was missing cuts badly and stopped receiving exemptions.
Wie earned LPGA Tour membership in 2009 and has won two events. And though it's taken far longer than anyone thought, the former phenom now has a chance to fulfill her destiny.
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