With Michelle Wie's fall from grace in 2007, a year in which she broke her wrist in a tumble and looked to have lost the ability to hit the ball, the "Told you So" merchants had a field day. They had always regarded Wie as overhyped and over-rated and it had only been a matter of time, they said, before the rest of us realised it.

Wie had been singled out for special treatment, players would argue, and this was unfair to the rest of them. Never mind that at the age of 13, she had finished tied ninth at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, one of the four majors, and a year later came home in fourth place. In anybody's books, that was pretty impressive.

But not only that, like Tiger Woods, Wie created a buzz wherever she played. People wanted to watch her and, for the most part, they were rarely disappointed in what they saw. The problem was, she diverted attention from the rest of the field. "What's she got that we haven't?" they would say.

The past year has been a dispiriting and confidence-sapping one for the 18-year-old Hawaiian. But she has started to turn things around and this week is playing at the Women's US Open here at the Interlachen Country Club, near Minneapolis, as of right. There were no invitations this time, just a qualifying tournament in which she finished second, and nobody can argue that she does not deserve her place.

It would be particularly good for the women's game, in the year that Annika Sorenstam has decided to hang up her clubs, if Wie could fully rediscover her touch. There are now a whole host of brilliant young players on Tour, many of them from South Korea and not much older than Wie, plus the outstanding and supremely talented Lorena Ochoa, the world No 1.

But at the McDonald's LPGA Championship recently, it was depressing to witness a major championship almost devoid of atmosphere. If Wie does nothing else, at her best she elevates the interest.

Wie's lofty aims of playing in the Masters and qualifying for the men's PGA Tour might have been reined in, but there is no reason why such a naturally gifted athlete should not be successful. She is, after all, still a teenager and has just finished her first year at Stanford University. There are years ahead of her.

Perhaps Wie achieved too much, too soon. In her first appearance at the Kraft Nabisco Championship in 2003, she was a delight. Witty and mature beyond her years, she held the press in the palm of her hand. And yet it was on the course that she was most impressive. At 6ft tall, she was statuesque and powerful and hit the ball like no other female player, Sorenstam included. Some of her drives ended up 300 yards from the tee, courtesy of a beautiful, languid swing.

If you don't believe me, go to You Tube and search for Wie and Ernie Els . There you will see a comparison between her swing and the Big Easy's. They are uncannily alike, both swings of beauty. It was at the 2004 Sony Open in Hawaii, a men's event in which she missed the cut by just one shot, that she was dubbed the Big Wiesy. It was easy to see why and, consequently, the hype surrounding her grew like Topsy.

There were those within the game, however, who were keen to point out that she had won very little. Chief among them was Morgan Pressel, a prolific winner as a junior and put out that all her thunder had been stolen by Wie, who commanded huge galleries wherever she played. To be fair to Pressel, it was she who went on to become the youngest winner of a major, when she won the Kraft Nabisco Championship last year, just under two months shy of her 19th birthday.

Wie would argue that there was no point playing junior events to gain more experience of winning when she had already come close in full-blown majors. That said, at the US Open at Cherry Hills in 2005, she led after the first and third rounds but blew up in the last with an 82 that exposed her to accusations that she did not have the experience to close the deal.

A year later, having turned professional six days before her 16th birthday, in October 2005 - and with deals with Nike and Sony said to be worth a total of around $10 million - she had a season that touched the heights and plumbed the depths. On the plus side were three top tens in the four major championships. She finished tied 3rd at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, tied for fifth at the McDonald's LPGA and tied for third at the US Open. Her worst performance was at the British Open, where she finished 26th.