A teenager ready to take on the world . . . one shot at a time.
Appearances can be deceiving.
The infectious smile that accompanies Minjee Lee on the golf course belies the reality of a young woman who is determined to leave her mark on women’s professional golf. Certainly, she’s well on her way after notching a maiden LPGA Tour victory at the Kingsmill Championship, in her rookie season. Speaking to the media on the eve of this year’s Women’s Australian Open, Lee declared her intention to be the world’s best golfer. “It might be a long way away, or it might not be, but world No.1 is where any golfer wants to get to. I still want to be world No.1, but I’m going to take one step at a time.’’ It’s a bold statement for an 18-year-old in the infancy of a professional career. Standing in her way is the current world No.1, the phenomenal Lydia Ko from New Zealand. There is a conveyer belt of talent coming out of Korea, and Lee has a rival on the Australian front in the form of Su Oh – the Melbourne teenager who won this summer’s Australian Ladies Masters.
Anecdotes abound about Lee’s commitment to golf. She has been known to spend her daylight hours practising at the golf course, while she has also embarked on a relentless strength and conditioning program.
If the Perth teenager maintains her current status as Australia’s second-ranked female golfer, she will be on the plane to Rio for the 2016 Olympics and be mentioned in the same breath as Adam Scott, Jason Day and Karrie Webb. To be considered in such illustrious company is why astute followers of Australian golf think that Minjee Lee is ‘The Next Big Thing’.
“Minjee really excites me,” says former player turned commentator Sandra Mackenzie. “She’s one of those players that can really turn it on and go seriously low and just enjoy every second of it. She’s fun to watch and she’s going to be a really super-exciting player of the future.
“There is absolutely no doubt that she will be going for that No.1 spot. But unfortunately she’s got an incredibly talented 17-year-old from New Zealand ahead of her at the moment.”
A gap year to remember
In 2014, Lee convinced many observers she could be a force in the women’s game. The world knew this, but now they’re sure after watching Lee fend off a stellar field of LPGA Tour stars to claim her first tour win at the Kingsmill Championship – in her rookie season on tour. For Lee’s efforts, she banked a cheque of more than US$200,000 and secured a two-year exemption on the LPGA Tour. “Definitely, it gives me a lot more confidence to know I can win out here. Hopefully I can get a couple more wins,” Lee said after her victory in the US.
This breakthrough victory comes not long after Lee successfully defended her Australian Women’s Amateur title, finished second at the Australian Ladies Masters, led the Women’s Australian Open through three rounds and beat the pros to win the Women’s Victorian Open by six strokes.
Overseas, Lee finished in the top 25 in the three of the five majors in women’s golf. She was the only amateur to compete at the International Crown, which was restricted to 32 players from the eight participating nations.
The Royal Fremantle member turned professional in September, the day after propelling Australia to an unlikely victory in the World Amateur Team Championships in Japan. Lee shot 64-65 in the final two rounds to lead Australia to just its third Espirito Santo Trophy in 50 years.
For the next two months, Lee set her sights on securing an LPGA Tour card at final qualifying school in Florida. She comfortably got her card, finishing co-medallist in the four-round event. After beginning the year ranked 391st in the world, Lee had climbed to No.78 on the official women’s ranking.
After just three events of the 2015 LPGA Tour season, Lee had accumulated $64,528 with finishes of 12th, 27th and a tie for seventh in the Women’s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, where she was leading Australian in her first tournament on home soil as a pro.
Understandably, that performance left her in a buoyant mood. She had appeared on tournament billboards and been bombarded by media requests. Lee rebounded from a slow start to make the cut, and then rallied over the weekend to post a top-10 finish.
After Sunday’s final round she contemplated the future, saying: “I’m just starting, so I feel like I’m in a really good place and I just want to build from here.”
“But I really just want to have a good learning experience this year and get everything sorted and settled on tour. I want to learn as much as I can.”
The whole package
Given Lee’s impressive amateur record, it wasn’t a surprise she made the leap into the professional ranks so soon. But somewhat of a surprise was that IMG, the global sports management company founded by the late Mark McCormack, had earmarked her for stardom.
That the pre-eminent sports management company targeted Lee says something about her appeal. IMG doesn’t manage just anybody; in the women’s game, it cherry picks the most marketable talent, such as Lydia Ko, Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer. What these players have in common is a capacity to transcend the game of golf and appeal to a mainstream audience. For an Australian teenager to be considered in the same bracket is an enormous sign of faith.
“We believe Minjee is going to be a superstar on and off the golf course, which is obviously one of the reasons we made her our No.1 recruitment priority early last year,” said Kevin Hopkins, her American-based agent at IMG.
Lee’s infectious smile, polite manner and golf potential have seen sponsors clamouring onto the bandwagon. Such was the warm reception from the corporate marketplace that Lee had equipment, apparel and corporate deals in place by the time she teed it up on the LPGA Tour in January. Lee’s Korean heritage played a part in inking a trio of endorsement deals with prestigious North Asian companies.
“What’s she not got going for her?” asks Mackenzie. “She’s a gorgeous girl. She’s fun. An amazing golfer. She’s the whole package . . . She’s the type of player that sponsors would be flocking to.”
Lee’s major contract is with Hana Financial Group, which is emblazoned across her cap while Hana Bank appears on her shirt. (Hana Bank was selected as the “Best Private Bank in Korea” earlier this year for the eighth time in the past 11 years.)
She wears Descente and its distinctive insignia, shaped like an upside-down trident. (Japan’s third-largest sports gear company last year surpassed Mizuno in market capitalisation for the first time in 30 years, which was largely attributable to its fast-growing South Korean business.) Srixon adorns Lee’s golf bag, which is a natural fit because she has used equipment from the Japanese manufacturer since her time as a member of Golf Australia’s national squad.
A fierce competitor
Ultimately, golfers are judged on results. Lee’s Perth-based coach Ritchie Smith was reluctant to make any performance-based predictions at the start of 2015 (in terms of number of wins or world ranking). But he did say she wouldn’t miss a cut all year. It’s Lee’s never-give-up-attitude that impresses people.
“I think she’s such a great little competitor,” says former LPGA player turned commentator Jane Crafter. “Every facet of her game is solid, but she has no fear. She controls her emotions very well, she’s a great competitor and she knows how to win. Really, when you’ve been winning at such a young age, it’s going to set you in good stead for the rest of your professional career.”
Lee’s competitiveness was on display in the final of the 2014 Australian Women’s Amateur at Adelaide’s Grange Golf Club. After turning 2 up against Karis Davidson through 18 holes, Lee went on a birdie barrage to leave her 15-year-old opponent reeling. Even when she was on the verge of a decisive 6&5 victory, Lee never took her foot off the throttle.
Nearing the end, Davidson had a 15-inch putt to halve a hole. The match referee, Golf Australia chairman John Hopkins, called the hole as halved, expecting the putt to be conceded. Much to his astonishment, Lee turned and said, “I didn’t give her that putt!”
Lee relented and gave the putt. But it left Hopkins feeling somewhat embarrassed from having called the result early: “I would have expected her to have conceded it. But not Minjee, she was out to win as quickly as she could. A fierce competitor – in a very nice way.”
Perhaps it’s in the genes. Both her parents have a strong association with sport. Her mother, Clara, is an accomplished golfer and was a licensed golf instructor in Korea. She played pennants at Royal Fremantle. Her father, Soonam, an automotive spray painter and panel beater, is a single-figure golfer and graduated with a physical education degree at university.
Speaking about her daughter, Clara reveals that she never had to force Minjee to practise golf. It’s a contrast to her son Minwoo, a scratch golfer who has the talent but not the drive of his older sister. “I don’t have to push her so much,” says Clara. “She was very disciplined, even studying. Whatever she did, she was very determined.”
Dedicated to fitness
What separates Lee from other top golfers is her dedication to golf-specific fitness, which began when she started attending national training camps run by Golf Australia at the age of 15. Back home in Perth, she would visit the gym, by herself, three mornings a week before school. “I like keeping in shape,” says Lee. “I’m really strict on working out and eating healthy. Don’t eat McDonald’s and lollies.”
Lee now has a four-year fitness base from continuous training, only missing a session for a special occasion like Christmas Day. That’s admirable self-discipline for somebody so young says Luke Mackey, a strength and conditioning trainer at the Victorian Institute of Sport.
A big challenge came when Lee broke her ankle in a golf cart accident three years ago. Rather than suffering an emotional letdown from being unable to swing a club, Lee spent eight weeks devoted purely to improving her body/posture. She hasn’t had a single hiccup since.
“Minjee’s almost bulletproof in the way that she’s been able to prepare herself for tour-level golf,” Mackey says. “When she travels, she is very fanatical about using spiky balls, foam rollers or stretching and also a Ramsay (McMaster) posture belt. And she uses that every single day, pre-practice and pre-round.
“So if you were at the US Open last year, you would have seen her in the locker room doing her Ramsay-belt drills, not giving a s— what anyone else thinks of what she looks like.”
From a numbers’ perspective, Lee has ‘squatted’ 80kg and ‘deadlifted’ 100kg. The impressive part about that is that Lee weighs 56-59kg. So in terms of relative strength, that is one-and-a-half times body weight for a back squat and nearly two times body weight for a deadlift. Impressive from a power/weight ratio, regardless of the sport.
While the game of golf doesn’t necessarily require that type of physical strength, the figures illustrate Lee is a world-class athlete. “She would be arguably the strongest female golfer around,” Mackey says. “Pound for pound, I don’t think there would be anyone else able to lift as much weight or squat as much weight as what she does.
“There would be a few girls out there who might be able to ride their bike faster or run faster over a longer period of time. But her postural control and strength is by far and away at the elite level.”
In her 2014 gap year, Lee played almost 30 events and so she had to be consistently training in order to be tournament ready for a sudden invitation to play somewhere at two weeks’ notice. It’s been drummed into her at an early age that golfers don’t know which week is going to be their week to win. So they’ve got to be prepared whenever the opportunity presents itself.
With her dedication to injury prevention, building strength and endurance, and being tournament ready, Lee has an advantage over her competitors, according to Mackey. “Her training regime wouldn’t be looked upon as being any less to any of the Olympians that are getting ready for next year.”
It would be a remarkable feat if Lee could join them just 23 months after turning professional. As a matter of contrast, the journey for Webb to become an Olympian will present itself in her 23rd year as a pro.
She wears a constant smile on her face and exhibits a carefree attitude on the golf course. But appearances can be deceiving. Lee personifies the metaphor of a duck – appearing to glide effortlessly across the top of a pond while paddling furiously beneath the water’s surface.
