ESPN Golf

Michelle Wie received a sponsor's exemption to play in this week's opposite-field PGA Tour event in Nevada. That got us thinking & the former phenom has played against the men many times, but has never made the cut. Even getting close has become somewhat of a victory.

Will the freshman at Stanford ever earn a paycheck on the PGA Tour or is she destined to be simply a drawing card who helps bring fans in to watch the show?

Our experts share their opinions in this week's edition of Fact Or Fiction.

FACT OR FICTION? Michelle Wie will make the cut at a PGA Tour event.

Despite her immense talents and unlimited potential, Michelle Wie in numerous attempts to make a cut on the PGA Tour has already shown the difficulty of the task. Other than the Sony Open when she was an amateur -- playing on what amounted to her home course -- Wie has never really been close.

Sure, she flirted with it one year at the John Deere Classic, before a late double-bogey doomed her to a weekend trip home. But that is the point, isn't it? Even "coming close" has been rare.

Since turning pro in late 2005, Wie has played in four PGA Tour events, missing three cuts and withdrawing from another. She also missed a cut on the European Tour. And she looked bad doing so. Until recently, her form was so poor that Wie was having trouble making cuts in women's events.

And you can't help but look back to Annika Sorenstam, who at the top of her game was unable to make a PGA Tour cut at the Colonial in 2003. Given more opportunities, Sorenstam could probably have done it. But the differences between men's and women's golf are numerous, making the task all the more daunting.

File this under the category of, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Of course, the word "succeed" is pretty subjective in this case. If Wie, who first played in the Sony Open as a 14-year-old in 2004, continues to make a priority of playing in men's events throughout her career, at some point she will shoot, say, 71-72 to make the cut by a stroke or two. But unless her mind-set is different from that of every other player in the field, simply reaching the weekend and cashing a check won't be considered a success. Ask any player -- whether they're competing on the PGA Tour, LPGA, amateur ranks or anywhere else -- what the stated goal is for a given tournament and you'll almost always hear some variation of this response: "I want to play well and get myself into contention for the title."

While I understand that making the cut symbolizes a certain level of achievement -- the first time Wie does this on the PGA Tour, her career earnings mark will no longer have a zero attached to the dollar sign -- there are, perhaps, more weighty questions we can ask. Will she ever regain the form that saw her break par on two occasions at PGA Tour events? Will she ever have any status on a men's tour? Shoot, will she ever have any status on a women's tour? So, yes, if Michelle Wie continues to accept a few sponsor's exemptions into PGA Tour events each season, at some point she'll make a cut. But it won't happen at this week's Reno-Tahoe Open and even if it does, it shouldn't be considered a major success story.

No, she won't make a cut in a PGA Tour event. In fact, there is no reason for her to be playing in any more PGA Tour events.

When she was 13, she was a novelty, a young girl with a world of talent who attracted people to watch her in person and on television. It was interesting to watch her play against the men because in the right circumstances, she had an outside chance of succeeding.

Now she is an anachronism. While the LPGA is loaded with teenagers who have succeeded on the professional level, Wie is an 18-year-old female golfer with no place to play. With nowhere else to turn, she is still trying to make a name for herself by playing against the men. With few other options, she is forced to accept any sponsor's exemption that comes her way. She turned pro so she cannot play in college or in amateur events. She does not have a card on the LPGA or Ladies European tours. She refuses to try to qualify for the LPGA via the Duramed Futures Tour. Even the few times she does play LPGA events, she does something to jeopardize her ability to earn money.

Wie has to play the Reno-Tahoe Open just for the repetitions, but to expect success on men's courses is an idea whose time has passed.

Unless we are talking about 10 years down the road, she has no chance. Perhaps the worst thing that happened to Wie was missing the cut by one stroke in the 2004 Sony Open on the PGA Tour when she was 14 years old. That near-miss created the illusion she was close to being able to make the cut against men. The truth of the matter was that she was playing without expectations on a course in her home state with which she was quite familiar; plus, she made about a mile of putts that week.

The more accurate evaluation of where she stood against the men came the next year in the Sony Open, when she played with the burden of expectation and missed the cut by seven strokes. The tragedy about her playing in Reno this week is that it comes at a time when she appears to be regaining the confidence shattered by her previous efforts against the men, a situation that thrust her into a two-year slump. Even though the Reno event is a second-tier PGA Tour tournament, these guys are still among the couple hundred best players in the world. Wie is not in that category.