ESPN Golf

Michelle Wie will open her 2005 season the way she started last year: in direct competition with the men.

	Wie

Wie confirmed Tuesday she had accepted a sponsor's exemption to play in the PGA Tour's Sony Open on Jan. 13 in her home state of Hawaii. She missed the cut in last year's tournament by one stroke at this past year's version of the event, though her second-round 68 was the best score ever shot by a woman of any age on the PGA Tour.

"I'm really excited," she said Tuesday. ""Hopefully I can do better this year. I'd like to get in the Top 20."

Wie, 15, did not hoist a single trophy in 2004. She lost in the final of the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links and lost in the second round of the U.S. Women's Amateur.

"I'd like to win at least one LPGA event [in 2005]," Wie said. "I want to be known as a winner."

Still, it would be hard to call the season a failure for the Punahou School sophomore.

She played in seven LPGA Tour events and finished in the top 20 in six of them, including fourth place at the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

"[The 2004 season was] a little disappointing," she said. "I didn't win a tournament. I didn't get any trophies, but my scoring average did go down."

Her earnings would have been about $257,931, enough to finish 43rd on the money list in just seven events. Projected over a 20-tournament schedule, Wie would have finished in the top 10.

Information from ESPN The Magazine's Eric Adelson and The Associated Press was used in this report.