Thanks to my brother Dave for his comment on yesterday’s post, pointing out some knee-slapping quotes from Michelle Wie following her lousy finish in this weekend’s LPGA Championship: (my boldings):

Even though Michelle Wie never made a run at winning the LPGA Championship, she certainly gave her sizable galleries reason to cheer this week.

Wie opened with a 2-under 70 on Thursday, hit a hole-in-one Saturday and started her final round Sunday with an eagle on the par-4, 358-yard hole.

Never mind the three double bogeys and eight bogeys, all of which contributed to a 1-under 287 and a 23rd-place tie. As far as Wie was concerned, there was absolutely nothing to complain about.

“I felt like I played great. I really don’t think the score reflected my game,” she said, shortly after a bogey on No. 18 capped her final-round 70.

“I feel like I did really well, I feel like I was swinging really well. Everything felt pretty positive,” Wie said. “I just couldn’t get anything going, and some of the putts didn’t drop. A couple of sprayed shots here and there (hurt).”

Reminds me of that line from Tin Cup, where Don Johnson asks Kevin Costner, “How could a great ball striker like yourself go out there and shoot an 83?”, to which Costner’s character replies, “Well, I missed a six-footer on 18 for an 82″.

…Or something like that. But you get my point.

Hey Michelle, listen to The Great White Shank. I’ve got news for you: your score is positively a reflection of your game. You finished 14 strokes back and in 23rd place.

But this is what we’ve come to expect from Michelle Wie. She’s always playing great, just never scoring. Always with an excuse why she can’t seem to win out there And the media and the galleries who follow her every move and shot out there never question a thing she says. After all, she’s Michelle Wie, the biggest draw on the LPGA tour.

I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again: if Wie was in her mid-20s, or weighed 40 pounds more, or had frizzy hair, or wore glasses no one, and I mean, NO ONE would pay any attention to her. She’d be just another Asian player out there on the tour. But because she’s got that sexy college-chick thing down she’s the LPGA equivalent of soft porn. How else to explain all the attention foisted on her by The Golf Channel and the huge galleries that follow her? It certainly isn’t her professional tournament performances.

Wie can trot out that same “my score doesn’t reflect my game” crap every week, but denial is not just a river in Egypt. And Wie doesn’t just live in denial, she owns the word - she’s been living it for three years now. Any professional golfer who finishes 14 strokes back and then argues their score didn’t really reflect their game is beyond clueless.

That’s loser talk. And it’s time for Michelle Wie to grow up.