Brimley, Mich. ? Michelle Wie felt she had nothing to prove, then went ahead and did it anyway.

Wie, the 13-year-old sensation widely felt to be the future of women’s golf, showed she can play with the men in Thursday’s first round of the Bay Mills Open Players Championship, the final event of the Canadian Tour season.

The long-hitting Wie, whose drives were frequently over 300 yards at Wild Bluff Golf Course, had a birdie and three bogeys in a round of 2-over 74. That put her seven shots behind Michael Harris, the leader when play was delayed for the second time by a thunderstorm sweeping across the Upper Peninsula.

Only 24 of 150 players had finished when play resumed at 5 p.m. and many had yet to even tee off. That meant some would have to finish their first round early today, before starting the second round.

Except for a few close friends, however, hardly anyone cared about Harris and the others in the field. Wie was who the fans came to see. And she lived up to her billing.

“I wasn’t nervous at all,” said Wie, whom Tom Lehman once dubbed “Big Wiesy” because her swing reminds so many people of Ernie Els. “I was too sleepy to be nervous on the first hole. Besides, I’ve been playing with guys for quite a while now.”

Wie is the third female to compete in a professional men’s golf event this summer. Annika Sorenstam and Suzy Whaley failed to make the cut in their PGA Tour attempts earlier this season. There is a chance that Wie will as the cut in this event last year was 5 over.