No soup for Wie this time

SADLY, there is no longer any middle ground with Michelle Wie. You can't have a discussion about her, only arguments. She has become religion and politics.

And it's a shame, really. Because nobody is accusing Michelle Wie of cheating, OK? It isn't a conspiracy, shouldn't even be a controversy. It's golf. And this kind of thing happens relatively often, in golf. Remember Dean Wilson being DQ'd just because he hadn't signed his card?

Yes, they have a lot of silly little rules. But those silly little rules are sacred, in golf.

I get the idea that a lot of people who are overly upset about Wie being disqualified for having taken an illegal drop don't really know very much about golf. And this is coming from a guy who doesn't really know very much about golf. But the one thing I do know is how they feel about silly little rules like this.

This isn't basketball, where it's no whistle no foul. It isn't baseball, where scuffing the ball and throwing the spitter are just part of the fun. It isn't football, where you hustle up to snap the ball before they can go to the instant replay videotape.

No. This is golf. And this stuff is sacred, in golf. This kind of thing happens all the time.

In fact, in golf the onus is on you to report yourself. And golfers do. All the time. If it's even close. They take this stuff that seriously.

Remember Seinfeld's Soup Nazi? Transfer that passion to divots and club lengths and drops and you might have some idea how the golf world feels about things like this. It can be cold and cutting and cruel and not the least bit ambiguous. Forget to sign a scorecard? No soup for you.

People who suggest the statute of limitations had passed just don't get it. (And congratulations. You're officially sane.)

And yes, in golf people can tell on you. People watching TV call in to tell on you. This happens, in golf. Those rules are so sacrosanct.

So the guy who told on her handled it badly. He should have said something earlier. He doesn't make himself look very good.

But that doesn't mean he's wrong.

And her response to the guy's first inquiry (on Saturday, by the way) -- "It sounds like I'm teaching geometry here" -- may not have gone over well in the golf world.

The headline in yesterday's paper had it right: "Rookie Mistake." That's just what it was.

But this is a sport in which these things happen when you slip up, and she'd better learn that quickly, because these people aren't fooling around about stuff like this.

She's a pro now. This is golf. It happens. We're only emotionally involved because her name is Michelle Wie.