How long has Michelle Wie been waiting for this moment?

In 2003, when she was already becoming famous and playing in her first major, Kurt Suzuki was a walk-on at Cal State Fullerton, no one in Hawaii had heard of Colt Brennan and only a few in the islands remembered an Illinois state senator named Barack Obama.

But while it’s been a longtime coming, is Wie’s win at the U.S. Women’s Open reason for coronation or a coming out party? After all, she’s the same age, 24, that Annika Sorenstam was when she won the first of her 10 majors.

It can be both, can’t it? Wie is still young enough to be considered a prodigy, and grizzled enough to be labeled a late-blooming veteran with plenty of battle scars.

This could have happened eight years ago for Wie.

I’m tempted to say "easily" but the thing you learn when playing or watching golf is nothing is easy. That’s true if you’re Duffer McHacker or Tiger Woods. Or even Michelle Wie, the most physically gifted female golfer the planet has yet to see.

IT WAS IN Newport, R.I., and with six holes left Wie was tied for the lead with Sorenstam and Pat Hurst. She didn’t choke, but she didn’t birdie anything the rest of the way and finished tied for third.

Although she didn’t win on that day as a 16-year-old in Rhode Island, that was when I became convinced she eventually would. She was tough that day, that week that started with a near hurricane and ended with a 36-hole final day that the grown women with more experience were more equipped to handle.

But Wie hung tough. She just didn’t have a magic shot that day to separate her from a crowd at the top of the leaderboard.

So why did it take so long for her to win, and to win a major?

Sometimes it’s been her own fault, and she admits to mistakes. Sometimes the other golfer or golfers were just better that day. And more experienced. Like Angela Stanford in 2009 at Turtle Bay.

People forget about the injuries.

Sometimes it was just the truly bizarre. At her pro debut at Bighorn, she was attacked by bees and then DQ’d for a bad drop, turned in by a snitch. At the John Deere Classic, a bug knocked her shot off course, and the next day she was strapped to a gurney with heat exhaustion.

Her character was questioned on occasion, but the talent was always there, and a certain resilience.

SHE WASN’T that far away from winning, several times. She nearly made the cut at a men’s PGA Tour event. One bad shot, twice — once at the Sony Open in Hawaii and once at the John Deere Classic.

But something always seemed to get in the way.

She never — publicly, anyway — doubted herself. And she always bounced back.

The fact that Wie had some anxious moments Sunday makes this even more special. The anxious years, too.

It wasn’t a wire-to-wire cakewalk.

Some thought Michelle Wie’s golf career would be just that — easy, from beginning to end. Maybe now everyone understands better that golf, and life, doesn’t work that way, even for the most gifted.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. Read his blog at staradvertiser.com/quickreads.