Michelle Wie doesn't have to play in both of the tournaments in Hawai'i opening the 2006 LPGA season — the SBS Open and the Fields Open in Hawai'i — next month.

But she should.

It would be a public relations disaster if Wie doesn't enter both. And it would be a blow as well to the LPGA, which added a second event in Hawai'i this year.

Team Wie, which includes Bo and BJ, golf's biggest mom-and-pop business, isn't playing hard to get.

Wie has committed to play only in the Fields Open at the Ko Olina Resort, the week following the SBS Open at the Turtle Bay Resort.

It's a surprising choice, considering Wie got a sponsor's exemption last year from the SBS Open and finished runner-up.

Team Wie hasn't ruled out the Korean-sponsored SBS tournament as yet.

But it's creating quite a dilemma, according to BJ Wie.

"We would like to support the community and the Friends of Hawaii Charities," he said. "Our dilemma is that it would use two of her six (LPGA) exemptions."

He is hoping against hope that the LPGA might increase the exemptions to at least seven, but it won't happen this year, LPGA official Kathy Lawrence told The Advertiser.

With six exemptions, the guess is that Wie most likely will play only at Ko Olina and use the other five for the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the LPGA McDonald's Championship, the Evian Masters in France, the Samsung World Championship and one other event in August when her dance card is wide open.

Wie's showing last year — a tie for third — gets her back into the 2006 British Women's Open, which doesn't count toward the six exemptions.

Neither does the U.S. Women's Open, which is a USGA event. She needs to qualify for it this year, so her schedule has to be flexible enough to work in the qualifying dates.

It might be asking too much, but an exemption to that major would be a win-win situation for Team Wie and the USGA, which can use the buzz of having the 16-year-old phenom in the field.

People seem to forget that though she is now a professional, Wie still goes to school and can play only 12 or 13 tournaments, maximum, during the calendar year.

One drawback about playing in the two 54-hole LPGA events here is that they end on Saturday, which means the Punahou School junior would miss four days of classes if she played in both.

The Saturday finish is geared for live telecasts back to Japan and South Korea when it's Sunday.

"The most influence to my schedule is my school since I'm only allowed two weeks a semester," Wie said in a Sony Open press conference.

Otherwise, she'd love to play in a lot more tournaments, Wie said.

The Kraft Nabisco, the first women's major in Rancho Mirage, Calif., is no problem because it's during spring break. But with a date change in this year's Safeway International, it means missing school, so Wie won't play in that event in Arizona, where she finished tied for 12th and 19th the past two years.

The Samsung World Championship and the Japan men's tour Casio World Open, which again gave her a sponsor's exemption, occur in the fall during Wie's first semester as a senior.

But for the rest of her junior year and this summer, it's a dilemma for Wie because tournament directors everywhere all want her.

It's like Tiger Woods, according to Sean O'Hair, the PGA Tour's rookie of the year who won the John Deere Classic and yet wasn't the headliner until Wie missed the cut there.

"I tell you what, you know, there's just a few people who, no matter how bad or how good they're playing, they've got all the people watching," O'Hair told reporters at the Sony Open.

"That's Tiger obviously, John Daly and Michelle Wie."

The Wie family and the John Deere Classic officials are in touch about the possibility of Michelle returning this year, according to tournament director Clair Peterson.

Sony Open winner David Toms recalled being at the John Deere Classic last year, saying nobody was watching him.

"You knew where she was the whole time. It was like a Tiger-type following. You know where he is. You know where she was on he golf course. That says a lot," Toms said.

So many tournaments, so few exemptions.

Too bad for Michelle Wie. Too bad for women's golf.