Michelle Wie (AFP/Paul Ellis)

The 2018 HSBC Women’s World Championship winner, Michelle Wie, is set to return to the 2019 edition of the competition and defend her crown at Sentosa Golf Club’s New Tanjong Course in Singapore from Feb. 28 to March 3.

Ahead of the tournament, the 29-year-old American shared her views on her career in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post. Here are the excerpts.

Question: You’ve been on tour for more than 15 years since you became the youngest golfer to make the LPGA cut when you were 13. You won the US Open in 2014 and the HSBC Women’s World Championship last year. Do you think you’ve fulfilled your potential as a wonder kid, or is the best still to come from Michelle Wie?

Michelle Wie: Hopefully the best is yet to come. I don’t think that I have reached my full potential. I feel very blessed and all with all the opportunities I’ve had so far. Being able to graduate from college at Stanford was one of my biggest dreams and winning the US Open was also one of my biggest dreams. But I don’t think I’ve reached my full potential. There’s a lot more that I want to accomplish so hopefully there’s a lot more to come.

You seem to have been around for so long but you’re only turning 30 this year. What would you have changed from the past in your career and what are your goals for the future? Does being world number one matter to you? What do you need to achieve your goals?

Being number one in the world is the most important thing to me. There’s not a lot of things I would change. Obviously, I have made mistakes in the past and what not, and of course there’s things that I want to change, but everything that’s happened in the past — good or bad — has shaped me to become who I am and I think it’s impossible to lead a perfect career but I feel like I’ve dealt with a lot of things. I feel very blessed with everything’s that has come my way. I think in order for me to become world number one, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing, be healthier, be injury-free, and hopefully that will happen.

Due to your injury last year, you played just 16 events — your fewest since 2009. With the Women’s World Championship being your second tournament this year, is it a bit of a hard ask for you to defend your title?

Ideally, I would have liked this to be further down the year but I feel very, very grateful that I’m able to play. Surgery went well and last year was a tough year injury-wise. But I’m very, very blessed to defend my title so I just feel very lucky to be able to be there next week.

You’ve been working on something new: a swing with less wrist cock called a Steve Stricker-style swing. How are you getting on with your new style of play?

I kind of did that last year. I was trying to find a way to be able to work around my injury, and swing as pain-free as possible. Definitely after surgery it’s been a long road to get here today. Every time I get injured, I just try to figure out a way to work around it, to play around it, to be able to play to the best of my ability. I am using a little bit more wrist than I did last year but substantially less than I have before, but it’s all about trying to be as pain-free as possible.

In your downtime, when it’s not tournament week or practice week, where do you like to go and play and why?

I’m a member of a couple of golf clubs down in Florida. I mostly play at their clubs and I love playing there just because, at the Jack Nicklaus golf course, it’s his club. I love being there because every time I go have lunch in the clubhouse, I see all of Jack’s trophies, the Jack Nicklaus swing sequence, the academy. So very excited to be there. Also, there are a lot of other golf courses there as well. There’s a lot of great golf courses down in South Florida that I’m a member of so I feel very lucky to have access to so many great golf courses.

Popular

Is Indonesia really ready to embrace dual citizenship?

Palm oil plantation-less mills lead to increase deforestation

Prabowo inaugurates construction of Majapahit palace replica