In the past four days, Michelle Wie has won the most prestigious championship in women’s golf, fulfilled the outrageous expectations demanded of her half a lifetime ago and blown through New York City in a Tuesday media tornado.

Friday she tees off in Rogers, Ark., for the LPGA’s Walmart NW Arkansas Championship. What better place to take a breath?

Today, the 24-year-old Punahou graduate is No. 1 on the LPGA money list with two wins — in the two events that probably mean the most to her — and nine top 10 finishes in 13 starts this year.

She was the only player to break par at Pinehurst No. 2 in last week’s U.S. Women’s Open, flashing the shaka as she soaked in her long-awaited major victory, watched by a TV audience nearly twice that of last year’s Open.

"It feels even better than I thought it would," Hawaii’s first major golf champion admitted. "Feels a lot better."

The LPGA could say the same.

"What we’re seeing is the full potential," Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam said during Sunday’s broadcast. "This is fantastic for women’s golf."

Wie was on Sirius XM Radio, the "Today Show," "Fox & Friends" (twice), CNN (twice), "The Dan Patrick Show," NBC Sports Radio, CNBC’s "Closing Bell" and Golf Central in Tuesday’s media blitz. The day also included a surprise sidewalk photo session with TMZ and time for a picture of Wie with her trophy from the top of the Empire State Building.

"I just keep pinching myself to make sure it’s real," she said a day later.

The LPGA’s most followed face has tamed her huge game this year and overcome the crazy expectations and criticism hurled at her since she qualified for her first national event at age 10.

Three years later, she became the youngest in the U.S. Golf Association’s 108-year history to win a national adult championship. She missed the cut in the PGA Tour’s Sony Open in Hawaii by one shot the following year and turned pro — with a shag bag full of million-dollar contracts — just before her 16th birthday.

Money and fame have followed, but from that moment until the beginning of this year there had been more injuries than wins and many critics, often cruel, who sometimes drowned out her "Wie Believe" fans.

Now Wie has won the Open and April’s LPGA Lotte Championship at Ko Olina. Her scoring average of 69.31 is 2.58 strokes below her career average. Sunday, she had officially weathered the storm that has surrounded her career.

"I feel like I’m living a dream," Wie said. "My victory is just now starting to sink in, although I haven’t had time to fully appreciate it yet.

"There are so many people in Hawaii who have cheered for me and been there for me through the ups and the downs. I’m grateful to everyone who has always believed in me."

Stanford University is included among the many she has thanked since Sunday. In the 4½ years it took her to earn her communications degree there, Wie was simply allowed to be herself. She called it a "priceless memory" and maybe a career-saver.

"If I hadn’t gone to Stanford, I might not be playing," she said. "I might be burned out. I’m not a person who, 24 hours a day, can only think, live, eat and breathe golf. I’m not that kind of a person. If I did that, I might be fed up with it.

"I learned how to live on my own, to do things on my own. My relationship with my parents changed. You change from being a kid to someone your parents respect."

Wie’s heartfelt hug with her mother Sunday might have been the most emotional moment of a unique life that has already seen much more than its share of emotions — often played out in public. Wie says parents BJ and Bo never doubted her.

"If I even showed an ounce of doubt, they just kind of told me they believed in me so hard that I started to believe in myself again," Wie said Sunday. "And I owe them everything."

BJ was a professor at the University of Hawaii before his daughter’s odyssey began, and could be again in the future. He and Bo encouraged Michelle to attend Stanford. Education — Punahou and college — was always part of the plan.

"Stanford made it easy for her to back away from the game," said Hawaii’s Mark Rolfing, a golf commentator for NBC and the Golf Channel who struggled to hold in his emotions while he worked Sunday. "I think Michelle fell out of love with golf because of all the naysayers and critics, all the second-guessing. There were so many external forces at play on what she was doing that she couldn’t be herself.

"There was no part of her game she could really own. I think when she adapted this new (tabletop) putting technique, she did that by herself. It was really the first major technical decision she had made and it wasn’t (coach David) Leadbetter who told her to do it, or her parents. It was something she came up with, she owned it and was fully invested in it and it worked. That started the process for her."

Two-time Women’s Open champion Betsy King said she believes Wie is "in a better place" since she finished Stanford and now spends more time with the LPGA players.

And more time, it appears, with friends outside the control of her parents. After the U.S. Women’s Open victory, Wie posted a photo of herself on Instagram taking a celebratory sip from the trophy with its top removed while in her unique tabletop putting stance.

Longtime Kona resident Susie Berning, who won three U.S. Women’s Opens between 1968 and ’73, was struck by Wie’s composure amid the Open madness.

"She’s grown up, matured some," says Berning, who now lives in Indio, Calif. "I like the idea she punched a lot of shots. Some have criticized her for not having as long a backswing and hitting it a lot further, but she’s matured and knows it’s not about how far she hits it, it’s about being able to go find the golf ball."

In December, at the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association Tournament of Champions that Wie sponsors, Rolfing saw a more joyful Wie, with the "smile again that she had kind of lost" and a "gentle calmness." He said he saw all this coming, and is thankful she has been so resilient through all the criticism.

"I think it’s remarkable she does not have a lot of scar tissue," he said. "That’s why she’s been able to accomplish so much, because the cuts were not so deep that she couldn’t recover. That is remarkable."

As Tiger Woods returns this week from injury, Rolfing finds the gap between the LPGA and PGA Tours narrowing on Wie’s suddenly broad shoulders.

"Tiger has been on another one of his sabbaticals," Rolfing said. "During his absence you think somebody is going to step up and say, ‘Hey, I’m the guy.’ It was supposed to be (Phil) Mickelson or Jordan Spieth or somebody else, but nobody has done it. That presented a lot of opportunities for the LPGA, and for Michelle to step up and say ‘I’m the one’ was really big. It’s enormous for women’s golf."

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