The Hole Story by Craig DeVrieze

Although her profile slips a notch with every poor finish, Michelle Wie remains big news wherever she goes, which means you can expect a few headlines when she arrives at the Michelob ULTRA Open in Kingsmill, Va., this week.

The LPGA event will be Wie’s first tournament start since she made the cut but finished dead last, 72nd, in February at the Fields Open in her native Hawaii.

Wie scratched from one spring event after a recurrence of the wrist problems that plagued her last year, when she struggled and appeared to have lost track of the transcendent game that saw her come within four holes of making the John Deere Classic cut in 2005.

OrlandoSentinel.Com golf blogger Jeremy Fowler caught up with Wie while she was working on her game at swing coach David Leadbetter’s Golf Academy in Central Florida on Monday. He reported that she answered a few questions before being whisked away and, from here, that seems a small sign she learned a little from the P.R.-blunders Team Wie made while appearing a bit imperious and haughty in the midst of last year’s struggles.

Even at the height of her popularity, Wie rarely spoke outside a media room — where, for the most part, she seemed genuinely honest and likeable, judging at least from what we saw over two appearances at TPC Deere Run.

Now, with a year of college under her belt, Wie’s brief but seemingly earnest answers to four Fowler questions would seem to indicate she is maturing nicely and, hopefully, is unscarred by the pummeling she took last year from the press, some deservedly, and by the vitriol, none of it deservedly, she consistently has endured from the small-minded many who resented her willingness to challege the men at tournaments like the JDC.

“I realize golf is not the biggest deal in the whole world,” she said in one telling response. “Golf is just a game. It won’t kill anyone.”

The Michelob tournament launches a busy summer that will see Wie return to Illinois in mid-July for the LPGA State Farm Classic.

Here is hoping her wrist problems are behind her and that she can show the amazingly fluid swing that once promised to make her the Tiger Woods of women’s golf.

When — not if — she does, I’m guessing there is another mid-July Illinois pro golf tournament that would love to welcome her back next year.

Click here for Fowler’s interview: