Danny Moloshok / Reuters

Michelle Wie ended the season with a 76.7 scoring average, which would have her ranked 160th on the LPGA Tour if she qualified.

To her credit, Wie managed a 1-under par 71 on Sunday and avoided finishing last. It reminded everyone of what we started out with here, what has been overshadowed by all of this pushing and prodding – a young girl with skills.

Wie has talent, like a lot of young players these days. She has talent that could have been encouraged and rewarded through nurturing years of high school and amateur play. She has talent that could have been allowed to adapt to the physical and mental maturation a teenage body goes through.

Creamer won 19 amateur titles before she turned pro. Pressel won the U.S. Women’s Amateur, North and South Women’s Amateur and was the 2005 AJGA Player of the Year before she turned pro. They had talent and they were ready to turn pro

If Wie had been competing with her peers all this time, if she was just starting her college career at Stanford as an amateur, she would be considered one of the top players in the country, a budding star. She would be experiencing her first year of college at a top university, and all the challenges and rewards that come with it

She would be playing college golf and enjoying the camaraderie. Mind you, she would not be out of place. She would not be in a league of her own. But we might be talking about her as an up-and-coming 18-year old instead of a washed up 18-year old.

S’true, she and her family would be a few million dollars shorter in their bank accounts. If that was the goal than damn this column - mission accomplished.

But if the goal was to support a young girl with a talent for hitting a golf ball, to help her become the best player she might be, the plan has gone awry. After all the hype, after all the forays into competing against men, after all the big contracts from Nike, Sony and William Morris, what now would constitute a successful year for Wie?

Will it be enough for her to simply get her card and be a serviceable player on the LPGA Tour? Keep in mind, Wie has still never won a 72-hole stroke play event.

As the dust settles on Wie’s regrettable year, you have to wonder if warped expectations haven’t put end-results permanently in the rear-view mirror, if Michelle Wie is destined to be professional golf’s version of Dickie Roberts.

One thing is certain, the golf world will see what Wie is made of.  She will have to earn her keep, now. At age 18, her star power is on a short battery life. Many of the exemptions she was receiving, the galleries she was drawing, will fade away. She will have to fill out the scrapbook on the merits of her play not her notoriety

She will have to fight her way onto the LPGA Tour, like everyone else. She will have to show people she can still play dynamic golf, that she was more than a cult figure or passing fancy.

If that is what she wants, here’s hoping it happens.