ASSOCIATED PRESS Honolulu's Michelle Wie has missed the cut in all five PGA Tour events she has entered. The golfer will tee it up again in a PGA event beginning tomorrow.

Wie unflappable

Michelle Wie keeps coming back for more on the PGA Tour

ARMINGTON, Pa. » Say this for Honolulu golfer Michelle Wie: she can take a punch and come back swinging, time after time, with no apparent damage to her psyche.

She has missed the cut in all five PGA Tour events on her résumé, but that hasn't dampened her enthusiasm for competing against men at the game's highest level.

The 16-year-old pro will step back into the spotlight tomorrow when she tees it up in the opening round of the 84 Lumber Classic. She is playing on a sponsor's exemption.

"I never get discouraged," she says. "It's not like it's a really easy thing to make a cut on the PGA Tour. Every week, half the field is gone after the cut. It's just really fun for me to play in these kinds of events."

This week's site is the demanding 7,511-yard Mystic Rock Golf Course at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington, Pa. This will be the last 84 Lumber Classic.

Defending champion Jason Gore heads a field that also features 2004 winner Vijay Singh, John Daly, David Duval, David Toms and Mark O'Meara.

"She's going to draw a lot of ticket sales, raise a lot of money for charity," says Daly, the tournament's unofficial host. "I hope she does play well."

Wie likely will attract the largest galleries. Her playing partners the first two days are Vance Veazey and Matt Hansen.

"Whether I play good or bad, I end the week knowing I tried my hardest," she says. "I know it's in me that I can make the cut. I'm still young, so I'm still learning."

Wie took it on the chin in her last venture on the PGA Tour. She left the John Deere Classic in an ambulance this summer after withdrawing because of heat exhaustion.

Temperatures and humidity soared during the second round at the July tournament in Silvis, Ill. She was treated and released from a local hospital the same day.

Most recently vs. men, in her first tournament on the European Tour, Wie missed the cut at last week's European Masters in Switzerland.

The Punahou School senior has competed 10 times in men's pro tour events, also including the Nationwide, Canadian, Japan and Asian tours.

She has made one cut, finishing tied for 35th at the SK Telecom Open earlier this year in South Korea.

But the PGA Tour is the gold standard.

Wie has expressed a desire to compete more regularly someday on the big tour as she matures and her already-impressive game gets even better. She will be 17 on Oct. 11.

The first step would be to make a PGA Tour cut. The closest she has come was at the 2004 Sony Open in Honolulu, where she missed playing the weekend by one stroke.

She is attempting to become the first female since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in the 1945 Los Angeles Open (now the Nissan Open) to make the 36-hole cut in a PGA Tour event.

"I read her autobiography," Wie says. "She's absolutely amazing. Not only was she a really good golf player, she went to the Olympics. It's pretty amazing how good of an athlete she was."

Wie will play against men once more this year, in Japan at the Casio World Open in November.

But first her quest to make a PGA Tour cut continues.

Not that she wouldn't relish playing this weekend, but Wie believes making a PGA Tour cut probably is a bigger deal to fans and media than it is for her.

"I would love to make the cut," she says. "I would love to make the top 20. But I'm not really going to rush it. I realize it's not the easiest thing in the world for a 16-year-old girl to make the cut."

Undoubtedly, that time will come.

"I have to get stronger," she adds. "I know where I have to get better, and it's going to happen. I know it's in me, but I'm just going to play hole by hole and not really think about the cut."

Wie has played this course twice in the past with Daly.

"I've gotten to know her a little bit, her parents a little bit," Daly says. "She's a wonderful kid, and that's what she is, and she's a phenom. It's going to be interesting when she starts winning a ton of LPGA events."

Daly believes if Wie had won a few LPGA tournaments, her confidence level against the men might be a little higher.

"But you never know," he says of her chances this week. "She's a hell of a ballstriker."

Because Mystic Rock is such a long course, even though Wie can blast a golf ball out of sight, Daly says she will be hitting a lot of long clubs into the greens.

And rain that already has fallen and is expected to continue into today will make the course play even longer because balls won't be rolling long distances.

"It's a learning process," Wie says. "Every time I come out here, I try to end the week learning something."

Regardless of how the week goes, Wie seems almost as excited about a Black Eyed Peas concert Saturday on the resort grounds as she does about the tournament itself.

"Oh, my God, I'm so excited for that, you have no idea," she says.

Her agent jokingly told her if she was in the top 20 after three rounds and had a chance to win, she shouldn't go to the Saturday night concert.

"I'm like, "Oh, give me a break," " she says. "I'm climbing out the window if I have to. I'm such a big fan."

WIE VS. THE MEN