ASSOCIATED PRESS In a photo released by CBS, 15-year-old golfing sensation and Punahou student Michelle Wie made her first visit to the "Late Show with David Letterman" yesterday.

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Wie has ‘no idea’
when she will go pro

The teen golfer fields the question
on David Letterman's show

Golf phenom Michelle Wie was on top of her game as she went head to head with David Letterman on his show last night, poised, charming and more mature-looking than her 15 years, yet natural and relaxed.

Wie appeared on last night's "Late Show with David Letterman," which aired on KGMB-TV, without her visor and her typically straight hair styled in waves.

"You just look beautiful," Letterman said as the 6-foot teen made her late-night talk show debut in a satiny Kelly green spaghetti-strap blouse and black skirt.

Toward the end of the interview, Letterman told her, "It's exciting to watch you play the game for many, many reasons. And even sitting here talking to you, what you lose sight of immediately is that you're 15 years old."

Letterman tried to coax Wie into saying when she would turn professional, which has been speculated on happening when she turns 16 on Oct. 11.

"You're just a kid. You're 15 years old and like a world-class golfer, not a professional yet, but soon I would guess," he said.

"Yeah," she replied.

But later in the interview, when the question resurfaced, she said: "It's the big talk now, when am I going to turn pro, but I really have no idea. ... I'm just going to turn pro when I feel like I'm ready."

When asked if turning pro symbolically means added pressure, she said, "I love playing for money as it is. I love doing that," which got a lot of laughs and applause from the audience.

"We used to play always like $5 rounds," she said. "The only difference is, I'm not going to be playing for $5 rounds anymore. It's going to be a lot bigger."

When Letterman asked why golf is her game of choice, she replied:

"It's just like a relationship. I mean, when you ask someone why do you love them, you just don't know. I mean, I don't know why I love golf. Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it. It's just a wonderful sport."

Wie explained her parents were golfers: Her mom taught her dad, and she loved driving the golf cart.

By the time she was 5 or 6, Wie remembers, "I was starting to hit a little farther."

"I was starting to hit my driver over the fence (of a baseball field), and it was hitting the windows," she said.

She now drives the ball 310 to 320 yards, and she is working on gaining 15 to 20 more yards so she can compete with the men.

"I hit it pretty far but they're hitting it farther," she said. "I'm going to go on what I call a crash workout."

She said she would like to keep her flexibility intact and build muscle. "I don't want to be really muscular, but I want to get a lot stronger," she said.

When Letterman asked what happened at the LPGA Women's Open performance, where she faltered in the final round, Wie was candid.

"It's just like a snowball," she said. "One mistake kept on going to another and another, and it just turned out pretty bad."

Letterman noted Wie's goal is to play in PGA events and in the Master's.

"It's all ridiculous that we're having this conversation, because you're 15," he said. "You can't even drive to the course, can you?" he teased her as the audience laughed and applauded.

"Actually, I have my permit," Wie said. "So I actually did drive to the golf course, but not by myself."

Letterman asked if she had met Tiger Woods.

Wie said she met him just once but was "really dumbstruck when I met him," she said. "I was zoned out."

"I was like," Wie said, displaying for Letterman her slack-jawed facial expression, her mouth agape.

Despite her popularity, the Punahou School student, who will be a junior this fall, said she has had a normal adolescence.

"My friends don't really care about golf, so they don't really care who I am," she said.

"Losers," Letterman quipped.