Michelle Wie West to step away from golf

Michelle Wie West has enjoyed a career unlike pretty much any other golfer, male or female. But now, at the age of just 32, she has decided to step back from the game after playing in next week's US Women's Open at Pine Needles.

She has the US Open at Pebble Beach on her 2023 calendar but that's as far as she's going – he husband Jonnie, unsurprisingly, has volunteered to caddie at Pebble next July.

Wie West gave birth to daughter Makenna in June 2020 and has played once this year in January, where her body slowly let her down (71-78-78-81), and she has decided to take a break though this isn't a retirement.

“I’m definitely not ruling anything out,” Wie West told Golfweek. “At times, if I do play a lot of golf, I’m just in bed. Or I can’t lift (Makenna) up, and that scared me.”

Wie West first made the headlines when she qualified for a USGA amateur championship at just 10. She played on the LPGA event at 12 and was the youngest girl, at just 13, to make the cut at an LPGA major when she somehow made it to the final pairing of the 2003 Kraft Nabisco (now the Chevron).

She finished her career with five professional wins, including the 2014 US Women's Open, but she will maybe be best remembered for coming within one shot of making the cut on the PGA Tour - in 2004 Wie West shot 68 at the Sony Open, the lowest round by a woman at a PGA Tour event, to narrowly miss out in the weekend. She would play on six more PGA Tour events.

Her whole career seems to have been plagued by injuries and she now looks back on that US Women's Open win and getting her degree from Stanford while playing on tour as her two biggest achievements. As for the future she will continue to work with a number of brands to help to champion the cause of women in sport.

“Because I accomplished both of those, I think I feel very happy in my decision now. I think if I hadn’t won the US Open, I’d still be out there competing week to week trying to get that US Open win. I was definitely waiting for the heartbreaking call that Nike wouldn’t want to work with me but it was the complete opposite.”

That partnership will continue for another five years where she'll be an athlete collaborator and getting more involved in design.