Michelle should beat the ladies first...

There are very few Golf Clubs where women are welcome to compete in "men's" competitions - indeed the very thought is likely to cause apoplexy amongst the male membership. Play in a casual fourball with three other men and the chances are that if you find yourselves playing behind a Ladies group it won't be long before the snide comments and jokes start to fly.

The ladies themselves tend to take this with good grace and have generally also come to prefer their own gender as company on the course. But the long-established practice that in nearly all golf competitions are either men's or women's' is now being challenged by the young golfing prodigy Michelle Wie.

Sponsors happy as Michelle tries to hack it with the men

In 2006 Michelle Wie (who celebrates her 17th birthday in a few days time) has had a pretty good year for such a young golfer, finishing in the top five in three of the four LPGA majors. However this excellent beginning to her professional career has been overshadowed by her decision also to compete in a number of (men's) PGA events.

Her performance in these tournaments has been pretty abysmal with missed cuts or lowly finishes in them all. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Miss Wie's decision to play in some men's events before she had won even once on the women's tour is a refection of her marketing potential rather than her talent. She is a fine golfer and a beautiful young woman who already has sponsorship contracts worth many millions of dollars a year.

These contracts are all the more valuable to the sponsors if their logos can be seen on the PGA tour televised events (which have high viewing figures) rather than on the little followed LPGA tour. Indeed the novelty of a sixteen year old teenage girl hacking it with Tiger and Phil and the rest of the big boys virtually guarantees TV coverage of her efforts.

Killing the golden goose?

It is sometimes forgotten that Tiger Woods, although himself a golfing prodigy as a teenager, did not turn professional until the age of 20. By that time he had already won all the top amateur events and got used to the art of winning - it became a habit for Tiger well before his first tournament as a professional. Surely the parallel for Michelle Wie is to try and win some Women's tournaments (including a Major or two) and only then try and compete with the men if that is what she really wants to do?

For the moment the sponsors will no doubt be happy that their investment in Ms Wie is paying off - lots of juicy TV footage displaying their brands. But if Michelle continues not to be able to compete with even the more modest of the journeymen pros on the PGA tour the TV networks will begin to lose interest - there are only so many times that "Michelle misses the cut" is a story.

Sport and business - there needs to be a balance.

Top sport - the ones that get TV coverage around the world - are very big businesses indeed and it would be naïve to pretend that this is not the case or that it is always undesirable. But the earning potential in the biggest of sports, from prize money and sponsorship, is today so enormous that the moral basis of sport is too often brought into question.

Drug taking, bad behaviour on and off the field, march fixing scandals and other unworthy happenings only occur because the prizes are so high. Whilst there is no such shame attached to Michelle Wie's ill-advised experiment on the PGA tour this year she would be well-advised to concentrate on winning where she has a really good chance and to first try to become the best female golfer in the world.

If she stood on top of the women's rankings with some Majors behind her at the same age as Tiger Woods was when he first played the PGA tour as a pro then Michelle Wie might really be ready to take on the men. But at present she seems stranded between the two worlds of golf in which she takes part and is not really at home in either. There is a real danger that this confusion will mean that her huge potential will be unfulfilled and that the goose which can lay the golden eggs will be truly cooked far too early.