By Marino Parascenzo
Special to PGATOUR.com

FARMINGTON, Pa. -- Once upon a time, long, long ago, a beautiful young princess, blessed with extraordinary talent for golf, set out on a quest.

It began as a priceless, enthralling fairy tale three years ago. It has turned into a nightmare.

And there is no handsome young prince to rescue her from the clutches of the scary monster, the dark, malevolent, implacable Prince Par.

Michelle Wie has missed the cut again in a PGA TOUR tournament.

It was the 84 LUMBER Classic this time. Wie, wonderfully rich in the millions from endorsements but two years short of joining the LPGA Tour, has tried six times since 2003, and has failed all six times. She has one moment of success to sustain her. She did make the cut in the SK Telecom Open last spring, but that was on the Asian Tour, and so it has fallen light years short of satisfying her quest. Babe Didrikson Zaharias, who did it in 1945, 61 years ago, remains the only woman ever to make the cut on the PGA TOUR.

Wie, now age 16 and missing her second week of high school back home in Hawaii, wrapped up her worst showing ever since she set out in 2003 at age 13. She opened with a 5-over-par 77 Thursday, and Friday she shot 81, a 158 total, 14 over par at the Nemacolin Woodlands' Mystic Rock course. She missed the cut by 13 shots, and finished 134th and last.

“It was tough this morning, really wet,” Wie said. “My shots weren't going on line. So it was a combination of a lot of things. When the shots don't go in the fairway, putts don't drop in, high scores are bound to come out. I felt like it was just - just not my day today.”

It was not her week. Mystic Rock, a punishing 7,550 yards and soggy from rain, turned her away completely. It's been said repeatedly that Wie out-drives many men, often hitting in the 290-yard range. But here, she averaged just 241 yards in the first round, 261 in the second, leaving herself long second shots. The rest of her game wasn't up to the demands, not even her putting. She needed 34 putts in the first round, 33 in the second.

Wie staggered coming out of the gate Friday, seeming much like a golfer in a panic. She parred No. 1, then went bogey-bogey-double bogey-bogey-bogey. It seemed the task was too insistent. At No. 2, she hit the fairway, but bogeyed. She missed it at No. 4 and double-bogeyed. She hit it at the fifth and bogeyed, missed at the sixth and bogeyed again. She missed the green on all five holes.

On the back nine, she hit the fairways at the 10th, 11th, 14th and 18th, missed the green at three of them, and bogeyed all four.

But she avoided the ultimate embarrassment.

“Well, I made one birdie today, which is one more than the tournament before,” said Wie, who missed the cut at the European Masters last week.

She birdied the par-5 16th. Until then, she was well on her way to being the only player of the 138 original starters not to birdie a hole in the 84 LUMBER Classic.

“So definitely,” she said, summing up her two rounds, “I feel I'm getting better. You know, I didn't feel it was actually that bad because I felt like my game was 100 times better than last week. I felt like my shots were, yeah, 100 times better than last week.

“This week,” she said, for example, “my par-3 score is tons better.”

She played the four par 3s in a bogey and seven pars.

The spirit burns bright as ever, suggesting that she's learned at least as much from her psychologist, Jim Loehr, as from her golf coach, David Leadbetter.

Think positive.

“Well, I just had a bad two weeks, that's it,” Wie said. “I feel like I'm getting better and better, my game is progressing.”

In her past 99 holes, she has had seven birdies, and is 34-over par.

Wie has also missed the cut on the Japan, Canadian, European and Nationwide tours, and apart from the SK Telekom in Korea, she's 0-for-10 in men's golf. She is not discouraged. She will play in the Casio World Open in Japan in November, an event already on her miss card.

“I just want to play and see where I get to,” she said. “I definitely want to keep playing out there and compete with them.”

Are her parents concerned?

“I don't give interviews,” her mother said.

Will she continue to play?

“We have already scheduled the Casio in Japan,” said her dad, B.J. Wie.

How long will you keep doing this?

“I don't know,” he said, ending the interview.