By DAN NAKASO
The Honolulu Advertiser

Joel Martel nearly fell out of his chair at his home in Montreal this week when the final eBay bid rolled in for the Michelle Wie card he had torn out for free from a sports collectors magazine.

The same card of Wie sold for no more than $20 last month on eBay, Martel said. But that was before the 14-year-old high school freshman displayed both her golf game and her charisma before a televised national audience at last week's Sony Open, missing the cut of male professional golfers by just one stroke.

This week, hopeful sellers responded by flooding eBay with nearly 400 Michelle Wie photographs, collectors cards, autographs, magazines and newspapers featuring Wie on their covers.

At one point this week, Martel's rare, platinum edition, rookie card from All Sports Magazine topped them all, selling for $280.

"When I see how she played and all the publicity around that event, I decided that it was the time to put this card on eBay," Martel said from Montreal. "Because she is hot I was hoping to obtain $35 to $40. But when I saw the final bid I almost fell from my chair."

The online auction site's increased activity for all things Wie represents just one part of the global collectors market that's exploded since Wie's performance, said Bill Froloff, the owner of a sports memorabilia company called 65 Mustang Sports, based in Mission Viejo, Calif.

"Once somebody does something spectacular, such as Michelle's done, then these things start to snowball," Froloff said. "It's kind of like a fever pitch. It's hot right away and then the fever dies away until something else happens."

Wie cannot accept any compensation from the sales, or she would jeopardize her amateur standing. But that hardly slows the activity surrounding her.

At her next tournament, Froloff expects Wie to be swarmed with people wanting her autograph on hats, programs, golf balls and just about anything else. And it won't necessarily be for a keepsake.

"They're going to turn around and try to sell it just because it has her name on it," he said. "People see superstar written all over her."

Not everyone producing Wie-related items these days, however, is looking to make money.

The Ko Olina Golf Club in Hawaii made 300 red-lettered "Go Michelle" buttons for the Sony Open and passed them out to children for free.

A Honolulu resident, Wie practices at Ko Olina, helps the junior program and lets the club display her Women's Amateur Public Links Championships trophy. The club, in turn, made the buttons to show its support for Wie, said Greg Nichols, the club's director of golf.

But people have been asking to buy the buttons ever since the Sony Open, Nichols said.

"We say, 'They're not for sale,' " Nichols said. "We're not trying to profit off of Michelle's notoriety. It was really a show of support for her."

Wie has let the club auction off a round of golf with her for thousands of dollars that benefited the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association, Nichols said. And if she does it again, Nichols expects the bids to go up.

"Especially if it's at a national event," Nichols said, "the sky's the limit. Michelle is the hottest thing in golf right now."