She still wants to go to Stanford, but her long-term goal is to play on the men’s tour. Nothing against the women, she wants to beat them, too. But playing the men is a different challenge.

“There are some people that are always against me,” she said. “But, you know, I just have to realize that I’m having a lot of fun, and this is what I want to do. And I’m not going to stop just for them.”

Some of the objections stem from her use of sponsor exemptions. If Wie really wants to play, critics say, she should try qualifying like Whaley did.

But Wie sees it a different way.

“If someone says, ‘Here you go, here’s $100,’ I mean, would you rather work for it or would you just get it?” she asked. “I mean, that makes sense to me. I mean, I don’t know about anyone else, but I like the easy way in.”

And Wie is hardly the first person to get sponsor’s exemptions.

“If the sponsors want to get a crowd, that’s what they do,” Tiger Woods said last week. “I got an exemption when I was 16, too.”

For Deere Classic organizers, giving Wie an exemption wasn’t even a question.

Tournament director Clair Peterson extended an invitation for last year’s tournament after she barely missed the cut at the 2004 Sony, but the timing didn’t work. When Wie’s parents called Peterson this spring, he was happy to make the offer again.

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Because the Deere Classic falls on the week before the British Open, most of the big names skip it. With the addition of Wie, though, it becomes a must-watch event. Ticket sales are brisk, and 93 media organizations requested credentials, an increase of about 30 percent from last year.

“She’s accomplished a tremendous amount in golf already,” Peterson said. “She’s a huge talent and people are interested in seeing that. That really was our first consideration.”

Besides, Johnson said, talent is talent.

“Throw sex aside, you have a phenomenal talent,” Johnson said. “They don’t come around very often. There’s only so many Michelle Wies, Tiger Woodses, Michael Jordans, whoever it is. ... I just think it’s a win-win situation on both the Wie side and the tournament side, through and through.”

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