Golf Focus: When will she turn pro, how much will she make and who will be willing to pay? Lawrence Donegan on some pressing issues

Michelle Wie does not read her own press. Not only is such self-denial good for her sanity, it is absolutely essential for her scholastic prospects, especially last week of all weeks, when the grey gents of the Royal and Ancient (R&A) announced she would be allowed to play in this year's British Open Championship despite a rule which states the competition is open only to men. If the Hawaiian teenager had tried to read every newspaper story generated around the world by that little bombshell she would never have had time to sleep, let alone open a school book.

In the unlikely event that Wie actually qualifies to play at St Andrews - unlikely because she would need to win or finish well up the leaderboard in the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic to secure the British Open exemption on offer - last week's coverage will come to resemble not so much a blanket as a very flimsy tissue.

In short, the sight of the 15-year-old on the first tee of the Old Course this July could legitimately be considered a contender for the most significant story in golf history. It would be the moment, too, when the game's money men would be forced to sit down and recalculate how much it might cost to hitch their name to a new global sporting phenomenon.

One million dollars a year; $5 million; $12 million; $20 million - the value of Wie's marketability seems to rise with the speed of an express elevator. But the truth is, in the words of Clair Peterson, tournament director of the John Deere Classic: "It's all just guessing. What I can tell you from my experience is that her coming to our tournament has generated an enormous amount of publicity and interest. Within one hour of the R&A's statement we found over 300 stories on the internet that mentioned the John Deere Classic. In the past few days we have had calls from numerous US media outlets asking for accreditation.

"Rather than go over to St Andrews early for the British Open they intend to come here to Silvis, Illinois, to see if she can qualify. We've also had corporate clients closing deals with us with a certain degree of excitement - all because of Michelle Wie. We have experienced nothing like this since Tiger Woods turned up at our tournament in 1996; it was his third professional event."

Peterson was lucky. He managed to secure Wie's attendance with nothing more than a polite and assiduous e-mail to her father, BJ Wie. In fact, it will cost her to play in his tournament: she is an amateur and under the rules of golf she has to pay her expenses. But one day, give or take the uncertainties that come with emerging teenage talent, it will cost him Tigeresque dollars.

In the five years since word travelled across the South Pacific to mainland America that the daughter of BJ and Bo Wie, a professor of transport policy and a real estate agent respectively, was blessed with prodigious talent, the life and times of Michelle Wie have been tracked by every businessman in golf.

"Yes, we have been talking to her father for a while," Peter Johnson, chief operating officer of IMG, the world's biggest sports agency, said last year, adding: "But just talking."

Again, the rules of golf prohibit IMG from acting for an amateur. But such rules did not stop the agency paying Earl Woods, father of Tiger (IMG's biggest client), a reported $50,000 for his services as a golf adviser.

For his part, BJ Wie says he has no financial relationship with IMG and that he met the cost of his daughter's career - estimated at $70,000 a year - with a bank loan.

Nevertheless, it does not take a marketing genius to work out the kind of topics that will have arisen during Johnson's conversations with Prof Wie. They are the same topics that come up whenever golf's money men discuss Michelle Wie: when will she turn pro, how much money will she make in endorsements, and who will be willing to pay the money?

Thus far, the Wies, and Michelle herself, have insisted she will attend college (Stanford University in fact, alma mater of her hero Woods) before turning pro. But the risks involved in that appear astronomical, at least to outsiders: what if she were injured, could not play for a while and were unable to recapture her form when she returned? Is she willing to forgo financial security for the sake of her education? As one sports agent said recently: "She can read books after she's got millions in the bank."

If she does turn pro sooner rather than later, then the safest bet is that, again, like Tiger, she will become a Nike athlete, although, either by accident or design, every major equipment manufacturer has been given a little bit of hope that they might have a chance. Like other teenagers, Wie is fickle. Once, she played Titleist irons and a TaylorMade driver and a Ping putter. She wore Footjoy shoes and Titleist caps. She started using a Scotty Cameron putter. The Titleist clothing went, along with the Titleist irons. These days, she sometimes wears Adidas clothing and plays with Nike irons, a Nike ball and a Nike driver.

"Just like Tiger. She loves everything Tiger does, just like a lot of kids in America," says a friend of the family.

Two years ago, when the then 13-year-old almost made the cut in the PGA Sony Open in Hawaii, it was claimed Nike's founder, Phil Knight, had told his staff he was determined to sign Wie, no matter what it cost. Apocryphal or otherwise, it is certainly true that Nike has one executive who tends to her equipment needs. It must be a strange world for any teenager when a corporation has someone on a six-figure salary hanging around just to make sure the prodigy has a ready supply of golf balls, though by all accounts Wie appears unaffected by such attention.

"Trust me, she's a completely normal teenager. It's not about making money or being courted by Nike or any other company for her, it's about golf," says Gary Gilchrist, Wie's coach and part-time caddie until last year. "She loves playing golf. If she's got $100, she's happy.

"I'm not saying the money wouldn't make a difference to the Wies - they live in a small place and $100 million will change anyone's life - but this is about making sure their daughter gets the best education she can and making sure she achieves everything she wants to achieve." Guardian Service