Not assuming that you or anyone else are terribly interested in what I think, but I’m interested in what you think, so: Sorry for the slow reply; been busy.

True, I should have explicitly given the USGA some credit in that it wasn’t exactly giving away dozens of spots to players shooting ~155. However, like I said, unless there’s a huge disparity in difficulty between courses (which there might be, and which would suggest the USGA could do a better job of appropriate course selection), I feel that there should be some basic cutoff — there’s a big difference between a 145 and a 155. There’s also the possibility when you guarantee spots that a 165 could get in. Maybe determine maximum qualifying scores for each site, let the players know what they need to shoot, and then if you don’t get enough qualifiers, let in that many more from some combination of last year’s and the current year’s money list (or just from one of the two). I really don’t know; possibly a stupid idea, and/or possibly too difficult to implement. Regardless, I don’t think the sectional qualifiers should be held the day after a major championship.

And yes, it is indeed their choice which site to play, but of course most of the good players are going to choose the site as close as possible to where the LPGA Championship was hosted, because they would expect to be playing there on Sunday and not want to fly halfway (or worse) across the country to play two rounds starting early the next morning. The point of exemptions is to protect the top players from missing out due to one bad day. The point of local and sectional qualifying is to give anyone in the country below a certain handicap a chance to qualify — not to force top-20 or 30 players to re-prove that they are currently major contenders.

I don’t think Michelle thinks nearly as lowly of the players you mentioned as you seem to. I also haven’t heard her say she’s the “savior of women’s golf,” nor that the other players are beneath her. To me, those seem to be labels from other people and assumptions based on her accepting invitations to play in men’s tournaments. Right now, she seems to be enjoying herself on tour and to have made some pretty good friends out there. She’s done her best to earn it, and while she hasn’t played great all the time, she’s definitely played better in the last year and a half than a lot of players who did get exemptions.

The “backlash” I mentioned is presumably very small, because obviously if one is a fan of Wie or Gulbis, then one is not a fan of any of the other players. In all seriousness, “outrage on the net” was presumptive by its imprecision, and personally incorrect — I meant to refer to fan comments on sites like these, not anything official like a news story or a statement from a player, family, or coach. For my part, I’m disappointed and I disagree with the exemption rules for the Women’s U.S. Open, but I’m not outraged and I’ll certainly enjoy the tournament. I’d love to see Morgan Pressel or Paula Creamer get number one, especially after Pressel was so close in 2005 when Birdie Kim holed an unlikely bunker shot and Creamer already has the “best player without a major” label at 22(!) because she’s won eight tournaments. I’d definitely love to see Christina Kim breakthrough. There are lots of other players looking for the first or second major that I’ll be rooting for, as well; it would be cool to see an Inbee Park or Jiyai Shin get a second and maybe become contenders to push Ochoa a little bit. Lorena is always a huge draw for me at any major; I want to see her get to double digits in her career.

Anyway — you said: “Automatic qualifiers by ranking aren’t based on this year’s money list.” I’m not sure if you’re talking about the men’s U.S. Open here, because the women’s U.S. Open has no automatic qualifier at all based on ranking. The USGA does exempt the top-10 women from the current year’s money list; that changed from the top-30 last year. The top-50 from the previous year’s money list are also exempt.

If I could say one thing, it’s that while I’m a fan of Wie, I don’t feel that’s affecting my dislike of the USGA’s exemptions for the women’s U.S. Open. It leaves the possibility of an even worse situation than Wie’s, where a rookie could, for example, have finished in the top 10 in eight straight majors (except the most recent U.S. Open), come up just short in a bunch of tournaments, finished in the top 15 on the money list (unofficially, since they weren’t yet a member of the LPGA Tour), be 5/10 on top 10s in their rookie year and 11th on the money list, be doing very well statistically, and still have to qualify. Why can’t an unofficial finish in the top-50 on the previous year’s money list count for a rookie, especially when they’ve probably done it in far fewer events than the average player who finished in the 40-50 range? Why don’t rankings count for anything like they do for the men’s Open?

As it is, rookies essentially have either to be a top-10 money-lister immediately in their rookie season, have won a tournament in the past year, or placed in the top-15 at the previous year’s Open to be exempt. Not really the right way to do things in my opinion, especially with so many talented young players nowadays.

Finally, on Gulbis — I heard she was dealing with injuries last year, and that she’s playing better this year (but I really don’t follow her). I’m also a fan of giving up length for accuracy — Anna Nordqvist hit her last 32 fairways at the LPGA, and even though she was occasionally dinking it out there and leaving herself in the 200 yard range on 400 to 420 yard holes, it was to her advantage. Phil plays a lot better, in my opinion, when he plays short and straight. But then again, he hits the ball high, and I have no idea how Natalie’s ball flight compares to Anna’s. On the other hand, accuracy and good putting are always good at a U.S. Open, even at the expense of long approach shots.

Apologies for my earlier tone and language, for my tone now if it bugs you or anyone else, and for the boredom-inspired verbosity. I blame the economy.