Ross Berlin, who has represented Michelle Wie for the William Morris Agency since she turned professional in October 2005, has left the talented teen to return to the PGA Tour and will be replaced by Greg Nared, formerly of Nike. I'm surprised by this story.

I've done work with Nike Golf before and have been around Greg Nared. His resume certainly looks impressive on paper. He's a former basketball player at the University of Maryland, he's been with Nike for 15 years, most recently as special projects manager for the Nike U.S. sports marketing division. Before that, he served as Nike's business affairs manager for Tiger Woods during the first eight years of Woods' career.

In reality though, there is a huge difference in experience between Nared and Berlin and I'm not so sure Nared is ready to be the VP of Golf for a major agency the caliber of the William Morris Agency. Nared is a charmer who can sweet talk most anyone. Maybe that will serve him well in his new position. In reality though, he was a glorifed "go-for" at Nike. He got the athletes the product they needed when they needed it.........most of the time. There are some legendary stories about how Nared didn't get Tiger his Nike product on time. After this happened several times, Nared was removed from servicing Nike's most prized athlete. Tiger Woods is meticulous about is equipment and his attire and if you have someone like Nared letting Tiger down, or simply disappearing for stretches, that's not going to work.

In reality, Nike Golf President Bob Wood and Nike Golf Global Sports Marketing Director Kel Devlin manage the relationship with Tiger Woods - and they do an excellent job working with him to outfit him with the best possible golf equipment, golf ball, attire and footwear. To say that Nared was responsible for overseeing Nike Golf's overall relationship with Tiger would be a huge inaccuracy and would be unfair to Wood and Devlin. Wood and Devlin, in my opinion (and the opinion of Tiger's agent Mark Steinberg who has been on SBR) have done the best job I've ever seen of maximizing the partnership between a company and an athlete. When you think Tiger, you think Nike Golf and vice versa. Its authentic.

Again, Nared was the guy Tiger called when he needed a new pair of shoes or wanted to find out what his outfit was going to be for a certain event. That's all. Now the guy is ready to manage the career of a teen prodigy like Wie? We'll soon find out.

Wie's past year has been pretty unstable. She ended up in a hospital emergency room in one tournament against men and finished last in two others. In August, she fired her caddie, Greg Johnston, and has used two different caddies since.

Berlin was placed in the awkward position of firing Wie's caddie at the gate at Manchester Airport in August as the two were waiting to board flights home after the Women's British Open, prompting Johnston to say, "I was extremely disappointed that no one named Wie gave me the news."

In my opinion, Ross Berlin grew tired of the Wie family dramas and saw a way to escape by returning to the PGA tour where he was a vice president in charge of title sponsor relations when he left the PGA Tour to join William Morris and handle the Wie account.

Berlin was not with Wie at the Samsung World Championship last week, the LPGA event where she made her professional debut as a 16-year-old in 2005 and finished fourth only to be disqualified because she had taken an improper penalty drop and then signed an incorrect scorecard. Management duties for Wie at the Samsung this year were handled by Jill Smoller, also of the William Morris Agency, with Nared taking a curiously prominent role that foreshadowed his new position. Wie, who turned 17 on Oct. 11, has a five-year deal with Nike, as well as lucrative contracts with Sony and watchmaker Omega.

The Michelle Wie Team at the William Morris Agency will now consist of Nared as Vice President of the Golf Division, with the division becoming a member of a unit headed by WMA President David Wirtschafter, Senior Vice President Jill Smoller, and Vice President Philip Button.

According to Ron Sirak at Golf Digest, Wie's last tournament of the year will be the Casio World Open on the men's tour in Japan next month. She would be eligible for LPGA membership based on the more than $720,000 she won in eight tour events this year, but she needs to petition for membership and ask for an exception to the 18-year-old minimum age requirement before the end of the year in order to get her playing card for 2007. The LPGA would almost certainly grant such a request, but the Wies have displayed no interest in having Michelle join the LPGA, opting instead to play a schedule that, this year, will include six different tours involving appearance fees of as much as $1.5 million for a single event.

If the William Morris people are smart, they will keep close tabs on Nared. Smoller and others above Nared will likely negotiate Wie's deals, not Nared.

It will be an interesting dynamic between Wie's team led by Nared and Nike Golf since Nared left Nike Golf to go work for Wie.

Watch this situation closely. One of the reasons athletes like Tiger Woods (represented by Mark Steinberg of IMG) and Michael Jordan (represented by David Falk) were so successful is because they knew they could trust their agents to help them manage all of their off the course/court opportunities. If Wie hopes to be a successful businesswoman over the long haul, she'll need to have a good management team in place to help her capitalize on the myriad of opportunities she will have. I'm not so sure Greg Nared would be the guy I'd trust with my future.