All we know about next week’s Lotte Championship is that it will be an adventure. Michelle Wie will be at Ko Olina Golf Club to defend the title she won with such joy last year. Where Wie goes, adventure always follows.

It might be a wonderful adventure. It might be hard to watch. What Hawaii has learned while watching the Punahou alum grow into one of the world’s most recognizable female athletes is that it will never be boring.

Wie is 25 now, 11 years removed from shocking some of the greatest players in the world at the 2004 Sony Open in Hawaii. The keiki o ka aina became the first — and still only — female to break par in a PGA Tour event, firing a fearless 68 to miss the cut by one.

"It’s tough to be that fearless now," Wie said Wednesday, between hikes and meals back in Hawaii. "As a child there are no experiences that scar you. You are doing everything for the first time, so there are no bad experiences.

"At the same time, you learn from your mistakes later so you don’t make as many as before because you know stuff happens. You learn from what you do wrong. I think I’m trying [to] get back to being more fearless. I also think I’m playing smarter. I’m not as scared, I’m playing smarter, making educated decisions."

Wie’s victory a year ago here was her third on the LPGA Tour, but first in the U.S. Her last victory on home soil came at the 2003 U.S. Women’s Public Links, a year after she won the Hawaii State Open women’s division by 13 shots.

At 13 years old, she was the youngest to ever win a USGA open event. At 15, she reached the quarterfinals of the 77th U.S. Public Links champion, falling to eventual champion Clay Ogden.

At 17, she graduated from Punahou and matriculated to Stanford, earning her communications degree in 2012 and finding herself after a childhood overwhelmed by adulation and criticism.

"Golf definitely made me who I am today," Wie says. "College as well. That was the most transitional phase of my life. Two years after was also a big transitional phase. And growing up in Hawaii also made me who I am today."

Today, she is the world’s ninth-ranked female golfer and reigning U.S. Women’s Open champion. The Hawaii prodigy we have watched since she was 9 fired a 67 to overtake Angela Stanford in the final round at Lotte last year and win for the first time in 79 starts and many grueling months.

"Every time I felt nervous out there," she said when it was over, "I was looking around and I was like there was really no other place I would rather be."

Two months later, she captured her first major title — again with a look of utter joy on the final green at Pinehurst and TV ratings spiking 92 percent higher than the year before.

"It is always a relief to win," Wie said, "but it was really more joy, a sense of accomplishment that I did it. I chased my dream. It was motivating as well because I want to recreate that feeling."

She finished the year third in scoring average (69.81), fourth on the money list ($1,924,796), third in greens in regulation (77 percent) and fourth in putts (1.764) — all career bests along with 13 Top 10s.

Wie missed part of the year with knee and hand injuries. She has suffered from strep throat and a sinus infection this year. Her best finish is 24th in the season opener and that memorable table-top putting style now ranks only 32nd on tour.

But Nike, Kia, McDonald’s, Omega and Sime Darby — her "respected partners" —remain sweet on her. And Wie is home, where the sweet scents and sweeter friends always bring a smile. She is grateful for the rare respite Hawaii offers, and has shown it in ways we often never see.

After Wie won the 69th U.S. Women’s Open in June, Ronald McDonald House Hawaii President Gerri Chong sent a letter to one of Wie’s friends. Chong wrote "here at the Ronald McDonald House we were rooting for her harder than most, because of what an incredible friend she has been to us."

She went on to detail the big screen TV Wie donated to the Judd Hillside House, along with the DVD movie library, two large screen monitors for video games, two family computer stations, two vehicles and help with the playground "she had envisioned."

It wasn’t Wie’s first act of kindness and it won’t be her last. At this stage in the remarkable adventure that has been her life, those acts have become yet another dream to chase.

"It’s an issue for me," she admits. "I don’t have a clear focus on what I want to do. "I’m trying to work on a foundation, I want to do so many things. I need to focus. What’s most important to me is Hawaii has done so many great things for me, I want to make it a better place."