By Dave Shedloski

Edina, Minn. – Michelle Wie is starting over.

The one-time prodigy who suffered through an ignominious 2007 season filled with injury, indecision and unacceptable golf, is back in the U.S. Women’s Open after successfully advancing through qualifying. She had not had to qualify since she was 13 and full of promise. Now she is 18 and is left making promises to herself to learn from her mistakes and be the best golfer she can.

Though she recently has shown vestiges of the game that brought her renown and made her a darling in

After a tumultuous season last year, Michelle Wie, on the range Tuesday, has a new outlook going forward. (John Mummert/USGA)

the sport, finishing sixth at the Ladies German Open on the Ladies European Tour and tying for 24^th at the recent Wegmans LPGA, Wie’s first real test on the road to full recovery comes this week at Interlachen Country Club and the 63^rd Women’s Open.

At 6,749 yards and with five par-5 holes, Interlachen appears to set up splendidly for Wie’s power game – a game that just wasn’t there a year ago when she tried to play through wrist problems and ended up performing well below her capabilities at a number of events. This included the Open at Pine Needles, where she opened with 82 and was 6 over after nine holes of her second round before withdrawing.

Wie, who at 13 won the Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship to become the youngest winner of a non-junior USGA event and nearly made the cut at the Sony Open in Hawaii on the PGA Tour, said Tuesday that she should not have tried to play with what essentially was a broken wrist. But her pride wouldn’t let her take the time to recover. She famously proclaimed at Pine Needles that bypassing the championship was out of the question because, "this is the U.S. freaking Open."

"My wrist was broken, but my mind wasn’t broken. I wasn’t going to let it break me," said the Honolulu native.

But she knows her bravado was misplaced.

"In retrospect the past is the past and it already happened," said Wie. "I could always say I shouldn't have played last year, but I did. And from that year I felt like I learned a lot. I felt like I learned a lot from my struggles, I learned a lot from my injuries. And I think from that I became a stronger person. I think that is going to help me a lot in the future."

Whether the future is now is up for debate. Wie, who just completed her freshman year at Stanford, is slowly rebuilding her confidence. She still isn’t afraid to think big things for herself.

"I think I can win. I think I've come with the mentality that I can play good enough to win this week," said Wie, who tied for third in the’06 Open at Newport Country Club a year after flaming out at Cherry Hills in Denver with a final-round 82. "I'm feeling pretty confident about my game. Like I said, it's still a work-in-progress. But I'm feeling a lot more confident. I'm feeling like my tee shots are a lot better, I feel like I'm putting a lot better. I feel like everything is a lot better. I feel like -- and it can only get better, from here I'm just going to get better and better."

Better than before the injury? Well, in Wie’s mind, the injury and the scuttled season that resulted from it are no longer part of the equation in her career. Asked if she felt like she was starting over, she had to admit that, yes, she was

"I feel like I'm re-emerging as a new player, a new person," she said. "I feel like I'm never, ever going to think about last year again. I'm not ever going to think about before I broke my wrist. That was then and this is now. I feel like from now on I'm only going to think about right now. I'm not going to think about that much into the future, as well. I'm just going to think about today, think about this tournament, think about this round. And staying in the present has helped me a lot with my focus and just becoming like who I want to be and just taking it one step at a time."

So who does she want to be?

"Who do I want to be?" said Wie, repeating the question. She mulled that over for only a second or two.

"I realize I just want to be able to fulfill my full potential," she said. "I want to be as healthy as I can. I want to be as good of a player as I can. I want to see how good I can get. I want to see how hard I can push and see how many tournaments I can win. See how happy I can become and just see what my full potential is."

Perhaps she’ll get a good look at that potential – and the new person to whom it belongs – this week.

Dave Shedloski is a freelance writer whose work has appeared previously on www.uswomensopen.com.