Is it just us, or has Michelle Wie lived through multiple golf lifetimes before she turns 20?

She has been Big Wiesy, LPGA saviour and the woman-child fearless and freakishly talented enough to play with the men. She has been disqualified, damaged — physically and emotionally — and disrespectful.

Through all this, the 2007 Punahou School graduate has shown a rare gift for attracting worldwide attention. At 19, she could actually write a compelling autobiography, between playing golf fulltime and going to Stanford.

"There are so many elements in my life," Wie said. "The thing everyone knows is I broke my wrist and all that, and not performed as well as I wanted to. But during that time I've grown up a lot as a person.

"I finished at Punahou, started Stanford. There was a lot of transition in my life. I was leaving home in Hawai'i. That was really big for me, really different. A lot of people don't know how truly hard it was for me.

"There are some points in my life I know I never want to go back to and I have to say I never want to go back to that dark place again. I'm glad it happened early, although now I feel like I can handle the bad places. Until I got hurt it was all going as I planned and then I hit a glitch in the road. I learned to appreciate things more and now I'm glad it happened."

Wie is not just ready to write a new chapter in her remarkable life. She is ready to write a new book that begins with How I Spent My Fall Semester qualifying for LPGA membership. Wie "most probably" will start her first full season at next month's SBS Open at Turtle Bay, the LPGA tour's first full-field event of 2009.

She has not lost her innate ability to fascinate.

BIG BREAKTHROUGH

In a Sports Illustrated article after Q-School, senior writer Alan Shipnuck wrote that Wie's breakthrough, after her last two tenuous years, "is exactly what the sport needed, as her renaissance will be one of the dominant storylines of the coming season. I can't wait to watch her again, with a fresh set of eyes."

The fact is, through all this the one constant, whether people love Wie or loathe her, has been that they cannot take their eyes off her. While criticism has been constant and sometimes shockingly vicious, most people have been quietly concerned about Wie's mental and physical health the past two years, in the midst of such an unusual childhood.

The fact she chose to go to Q-school, then aced it, brought a rare sense of calm and fairness to a 19-year-old who has lived in a crazy fishbowl half her life.

"It's pretty awesome she did so well," said Stanford classmate, and Hawai'i friend, Kawika Shoji. "She has been under a lot of controversy. This should prove to everyone that she belongs. Hopefully, she can settle down now and break through. I hope it happens real soon. I know everybody is pulling for her."

For all her foibles, Wie has accomplished miraculous things on the golf course. While she is no longer the "youngest" or "longest" or maybe any "-est," she probably remains the most fascinating golfer on the planet aside from a guy named Tiger.

She was the youngest to qualify for a USGA amateur tournament at 10 and youngest to win one at 13. She played the 2004 Sony Open in Hawai'i at 14 and became the first female to shoot in the 60s at a PGA Tour event, missing the cut by a shot with a game so sophisticated opponents were in shocked awe.

Wie advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Public Links the next year, three wins short of qualifying for The Masters, while attracting a mob to a tournament even parents sometimes skip.

She was runner-up at half the LPGA majors that year and turned pro near her 16th birthday, armed with some $12 million in endorsements. She held the lead on the final day at three of the four majors the following year and was nine holes from qualifying for the (men's) U.S. Open in between, with a fascinated and frighteningly large gallery in tow.

PAINFUL YEAR

No one aside from Tiger Woods draws golf crowds, or stirs imaginations and emotions, like Wie. But by the end of 2006, as she failed to break par in her final 14 competitive rounds, clearly something had changed.

Then she fractured her wrist and tried to play through the pain. Wie was 109-over par in a turbulent 2007, her beautiful swing in pieces.

Her health improved last year, but her psyche was scarred and a devastating DQ — for not signing her card when she was a shot out of the lead after three rounds — transformed 2008 from "comeback" to "crushing."

Until Q-School. Wie stayed uncharacteristically silent while she ripped through regionals and the final's five rounds. Her average score was 69.77, despite those being the only competitive rounds she played the last 4 1/2 months of the year.

THE COVETED CARD

Wie trained by trying to "beat myself — it's very hard" while taking Buddhism, Ethics, Sociology and Japanese her third semester at Stanford. When it was over, medalist Stacy Lewis was asked seven questions — two about Wie — while the new, improved "Big Wiesy" sat through a 24-question inquisition.

"It feels good to get that card," she said then. "It's like high school graduation, I guess. It's just weird. I've played on the tour for like seven years now, I think, and it's just like, 'Wow, I really finally got it.' So it's a very surreal feeling right now."

That did not last long.

"Right after it was over I was like, 'Oh my God, did I sign my scorecard?' " Wie recalled. "That was the No. 1 question going through my mind. The next question was, 'Did I really make it?' This is not a trick. No one is going to pop up and say we're not going to give you your card. After I took my picture for a credential and ID card — I've never taken great ID pictures — after I saw that and sat through 15 hours of orientation it definitely became real."

Up with the highest-paid female athletes in the world since she turned pro, Wie actually fell below another golfer — Annika Sorenstam — last year. She dropped to 24th in Golf Digest's annual Top 50, with a "mere" $7 million in off-course earnings; in the previous two Top 50s, Wie was sixth and 12th, with more than $12 million.

But she has her LPGA card now. She is no longer limited to six LPGA exemptions a year. She is 19 and she is thrilled, planning to play a "full schedule" on the LPGA and continue to try other tours while pursuing her Stanford degree two semesters a year because "golf is not 100 percent of my life." This semester, one of her classes is Drama.

"I finally feel like I have really earned it," Wie said of LPGA membership, acutely aware of how others viewed the 50-plus exemptions she received the last seven years. "I took the long way to get here, but I feel really good about it."

In typical Wie-speak, she will only say she wants to play "a lot" and is looking forward to the consistency full playing privileges provide. And winning, something she has not accomplished since she was 13. She views 2009 as a "clean slate."

SHE'S WHAT GOLF NEEDS

The LPGA craves her charisma and golf is in desperate need of the attention she commands — witness The Golf Channel's constant Wie coverage.

SI's Shipnuck believes that "Given Wie's flair for the dramatic — and a game that looks sounder and more explosive by the minute — I wouldn't be surprised if she won (at Turtle Bay) to kick off a monster year."

Wie has already faced monstrous expectations, even invited them. Now, life has changed her. She is "a work in progress."

"I've matured a lot," she said. "I can handle bad shots better. I can handle stuff not going as well as planned. Surprises and all that, they come with the game. I've had such a rough time, I know now how to handle stuff when it's not going my way."

When Wie was little, or more accurately, when she was younger, she had a disarming and charming habit of coming up with crazy ideas for what she would do "when I grow up." None of the ideas involved golf. Now they do, with equal regard to her major — of the moment — in East Asian Studies.

TAKING LIFE AS IT COMES

"When I was younger I tried to plan my life," she said. "I still have really strong goals of what I want to accomplish, but a couple things I've learned and one is just live your life and take things as they come. Obviously I want to golf, but there are other things I want to do.

"I hope I'm on the 'Five-Year Plan' (at school) now. We'll see how that goes. I've learned goals are very important, but sometimes things don't work as planned and you've still got to live life. I want to be a happy person in five years. I want to be a happy person and not look back with regrets."