ASSOCIATED PRESS Michelle Wie won the top amateur award yesterday at the Women's British Open.

Wie still pleased
despite her putts

Her performance earns her
a share of third place

SOUTHPORT, England » Michelle Wie said the experience was awesome. The putting certainly wasn't.

Women's British Open The top finishers after yesterday's final round, with total strokes and par scores: Jeong Jang 272 -16 S. Gustafson 276 -12 Michelle Wie 278 -10 Young Kim 278 -10 L. Neumann 279 -9 A. Sorenstam 279 -9 Cristie Kerr 279 -9

Once again, it was a case of leaving too many shots out on the course yesterday for the 15-year-old amateur from Hawaii, just as it was in the third round at the Women's British Open.

"I will be working a lot on my putting during the offseason so hopefully it will be better," Wie said. "I just couldn't read anything. Everything looked flat to me, and that is bad!"

South Korea's Jeong Jang finished 16-under 272 at Royal Birkdale to win her first LPGA tournament by four shots.

Birdies at the two long closing holes helped Wie finish with a 69 and a share of third place in her first Women's British Open, considered one of the LPGA's four major tournaments. Before that, she parred the first 11 holes, missing countless chances along the way, before her one other birdie, at the short 12th.

She missed a putt from 4 feet for another birdie at the 16th.

"I just left so many putts out there, and I feel a little disappointed by that," Wie said. "I felt like I played pretty well. I'm pretty happy with the way I played my first British Open.

"My putting let me down, basically. I couldn't make anything."

But the overall memory will remain.

"It's been so awesome, you know," she said. "It's my first time playing over here in this event. It's been so great playing on a golf course with so much history. ... Playing over here, I just can't explain it."

And she was delighted to finish as the leading amateur to win the Smyth Salver.

"It is really a privilege and an honor, and I'm really proud of myself from that aspect. It's great," Wie said.

Now she is looking forward to a lengthy break, going to Pittsburgh to visit family, then to New York to go on David Letterman's television show, then to Los Angeles to visit more family, then back home to Hawaii.

She will return to high school on Aug. 24 at Punahou School, a prospect that left her with mixed feelings.

"It means I get to see my friends again, and I get to be back home. But I'm not ... really ... that ... excited to go back to school and start studying."

Her next tournament will be the Samsung World Championship in California in October, two days after her 16th birthday.

That provoked the key question: Will it be as an amateur or a professional?

"I haven't decided that yet," Wie said. "I don't know if I will decide or how I'm going to decide, if I'm going to decide."

But she stressed that it will be her decision "when I feel I'm ready and if I want to."

ASSOCIATED PRESS Michelle Wie teed off on the second hole on the final day of the Women's British Open golf tournament yesterday at the Royal Birkdale course near Southport, in northwestern England.