Michelle Wie faces time off the LPGA TOUR after undergoing emergency surgery to remove her appendix. She faces a race against time to make the final major of the season, the Evian Championship in France in mid-September.
Just a week after helping the United States win the Solheim Cup against their European rivals at Des Moines Golf and Country Club in Iowa, Wie made a shock withdrawal before the start of the final round of the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open in Ottawa.
It was later revealed that the 27-year-old Wie had been dramatically rushed to hospital in the Canadian city to have emergency surgery to remove her appendix.
“My appendix is successfully out of my body!!” Wie wrote on her Instagram page, along with a picture of her lying in her hospital bed post-surgery. She also posted a video of her first meal after surgery—a doughnut—to her 369,000 followers.
“Been a super scary and painful 24 hours but I really want to take a moment to thank the medical staff here in Ottawa for making me feel comfortable throughout the whole process,” she added. “And a huge thank you to all my friends and fans who reached out to me yesterday to check up on me and to wish me a speedy recovery.
“I will be back to playing as soon as the doctors clear me to play!!”
According to her management team, Wie faces at least two weeks (possibly up to four weeks) on the sidelines due to the recovery process. That would leave her tight on time to play in the Evian Championship, the fifth and final major of the ladies’ golf season.
The tournament takes place at the picturesque Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-Les-Bains in France between September 14-17, and it looks unlikely Wie will have recovered sufficiently to make the journey across the Atlantic to tee it up in the major.
The 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champion has enjoyed a solid year on TOUR and had been hoping to add to her major haul by winning the Evian Championship.
Wie has enjoyed top-20 finishes in three of the four majors staged so far this year, including when she tied in third place in the Women’s British Open at Kingsbarns in Scotland behind winner In-Kyung Kim.
Her consistent 2017 season has also included seven top-10 finishes, with just two missed cuts all year. She was also tied sixth, six shots off the lead, in Ottawa before being forced to withdraw before the final round.