Michelle Wie figured the putt would stay out of the hole like so many others on a wind-swept day by the beach. So when the ball swirled around the cup and disappeared for birdie, she raised both arms in the air.


It wasn't a celebration as much as a relief.


Good news was hard to find Thursday in the Sony Open, where the 16-year-old was banking on the experience of her third straight start at Waialae and fourth on the PGA Tour. Instead, it was back to school.


When she missed a 6-foot birdie putt on her final hole, Wie had her highest score on the PGA Tour - a 9-over 79 that left her 14 shots behind Rory Sabbatini and virtually no chance to make the cut.


``Try and shoot 61,'' Wie said when asked her plan for the second round.


She was introduced as ``Hawaii's own,'' and ripped a driver down the middle of the 10th fairway, but it was mostly downhill from there. She had three double bogeys and shot 42 on her opening nine holes. She had two three-putts. And at the end of the day, an approach to the eighth green nearly hit her agent, Ross Berlin, in the head.


He held out his leather-bound notebook, which now has a golf ball-sized dent.


``What do I tell myself? That tomorrow is a whole new day and it just wasn't my day,'' Wie said. ``One thing I learned that I'm thinking about now is that the guys, even if they do struggle, they always seem to end it with a bogey or less.''


All that spared her from last place was Jimmy Walker, who shot 80 in the final group of a long day.


``Today it was like, 'Wow,''' she said. ``It's like, 'I can't believe I'm doing this bad.'''


The 79 matched her highest score in eight tournaments against the men. She also shot 79 in the second round of the Bay Mills Open on the Canadian tour in 2003 when she was 13.


And it was four shots higher than her previous worst score at the Sony Open, in the first round last year which took all the drama out of her trying to become the first woman since Babe Zaharias in 1945 to make the cut on the PGA Tour. Babe's benchmark is still safe.


Waialae was hardly a picnic.


David Toms, among four players one shot out of the lead at 66, heard the wind howling outside his hotel room in the middle of the night, and he woke up to the same sound. Gusts were up to 35 mph throughout the morning, and it showed on the scorecards as Waialae played nearly two shots over par.


``I've been over here for almost two weeks now, and it's been blowing every single day,'' Toms said. ``It would be a shock to me to wake up and not hear the trees blowing. If you can focus on hitting the ball solid, you'll be OK.''


Sabbatini did his part. He missed only four greens, holed three straight putts from outside 15 feet - including one from 45 feet on No. 14 for his third straight birdie - and wound up atop the leaderboard.


K.J. Choi bogeyed his first two holes by misjudging the wind, and he was on his way to another shot over the green until his approach hit the flag at No. 12 and settled a foot away for a birdie that got him pointed in the right direction. He was at 66 with Toms, Jeff Gove and Charles Warren.


Defending champion Vijay Singh was at 3 over until birdies on the last two holes for a 71.


Wie was down on herself at the end of the day, her voice quavering slightly as she began to explain what went wrong. Playing the Sony Open was nothing new, but this was her first time on the PGA Tour as a professional, and one of her endorsement contracts was with Sony.


She talked about the journey, not the results. But she wanted to play well. Instead, she took a page from the U.S. Women's Open, where a few errors sent her a downward spiral on a difficult golf course.


``I see a lot of similarities,'' she said. ``I think this will help me realize that this can happen, and I think I learned a lot from it.''


Sabbatini couldn't agree more.


``I played Bay Hill a couple of years ago, I shot 89 the first round, and I was in the top 80 in the world ranking,'' Sabbatini said. ``Is that embarrassing for the tournament director? I don't think so. Things like that happen. That's just part of competitive golf, and she'll get over it.''


Toms paid more attention to the crowd than the score. Fans were six-deep behind the 10th tee when Wie teed off, and they lined the fairways to see all 79 shots.


``If it was dead calm today, do you think she would be doing that?'' Toms said. ``I think she would be playing well. I think it's a hard golf course, and you have to be there on every shot.''


Wie wasn't there on a 30-inch par putt at No. 12 that started her slide. She pulled it badly to the left, then made double bogey on the 13th when her pitch came up short and she failed to get up-and-down. Another double bogey on the 15th followed when she went bunker-to-bunker from an awkward lie.


On the par-3 17th, she hit long into a bunker and three-putted from 20 feet.


``I just thought, 'Wow, I'm not going to shoot under par today,''' she said.


But as she got up to leave, Wie considered the alternative and decided that even a 79 on the PGA Tour beats another day sitting in the classroom at nearby Punahou School, where she is a junior.


``Exams today,'' Wie said. ``I'd rather be here.''


Even so, Waialae was quite the test.




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