Contemporary from a 3rd main victory, Minjee Lee believes there isn’t any restrict to the heights she will attain within the the rest of her already illustrious profession.
The 29-year-old displayed the psychological fortitude of a real champion throughout her three-shot victory on the KPMG Girls’s PGA Championship final month, by no means relinquishing the lead she started the ultimate spherical with.
In doing so, Lee undoubtedly cemented herself as an Australian sporting nice, a title that “doesn’t really feel actual” to her.
FOX SPORTS, obtainable on Kayo Sports activities, is streaming The 2025 Evian Championship LIVE & Unique | New to Kayo? Get your first month for simply $1. Restricted time supply.
Solely seven-time main winner Karrie Webb and five-time British Open champion Peter Thomson boast extra main crowns amongst Australian golfers than Lee.
Her scientific efficiency at Fields Ranch East, exterior of her US house in Dallas, Texas drew her stage with Jan Stephenson, whereas taking her previous Greg Norman and David Graham on the listing of the Australian golf main champions.
Lee admits that being among the many creme de la creme of Australians to ever grace a fairway remains to be fairly “surreal”.
She was even humbled by messages of congratulations from the likes of Webb and three-time tennis main champion Ash Barty after her Girls’s PGA win.
Lee should view legends like Webb and Barty slightly starry-eyed, however she doesn’t shrink back from her ambitions to depart a mighty legacy on the sport of golf, and having an analogous influence on others.
In her press convention after successful the Girls’s PGA, Lee made it clear that her “final purpose” is to qualify for the LPGA Corridor of Fame.
She even mentioned being among the many better of the perfect was why she began pursuing golf.
“After a couple of years as I grew up slightly bit – I in all probability didn’t even know once I was youthful what it meant,” Lee instructed foxsports.com.au of her Corridor of Fame quest.
“Now, I do know it’s actually laborious to get in it and you need to be spectacular and unimaginable.
“So, it’s all the time at the back of my thoughts, however I nonetheless have a variety of factors to get in there.
“It’s one thing I can’t fear myself with proper now, however I can chip away at it and that’s precisely what I’m doing.”
Lee on third Main win: “Simply means extra” | 02:33
The dream was born from watching Webb elevate main trophies on tv and on YouTube within the lounge room of Lee’s childhood house in Perth.
The US Girls’s Open turned the primary piece of silverware she craved after watching Webb’s back-to-back victories in 2000 and 2001 in awe.
Lee did add it to her personal trophy assortment with a four-shot victory at Pine Needles in 2022.
Twenty-seven factors are wanted for entry with two factors given to main victories and one level for every LPGA event victory.
With three majors amongst 11 careers wins on ladies’s golf’s main tour, Lee nonetheless has some work to do to affix Webb and the 34 different ladies within the Corridor of Fame.
However she has no doubts she will get there, even when she could have scoffed on the notion a short while in the past.
“You’ll be able to’t actually put a restrict in your potential. After the previous couple of years, I form of didn’t assume I’d get again into this place,” Lee mentioned.
“I feel nearly having low expectations or not likely fascinated by it an excessive amount of frees you up slightly bit extra.
“I feel going into KMPG (Girls’s PGA) after which successful that third main, my recreation was high quality. It was extra entering into the psychological head area that I used to be capable of faucet into once I received Evian and the US Open.
“I feel this one was extra the psychological problem of the grind than your method or the true technical components of golf. For me, it was attempting to get into place and attempt to keep there as a result of the climate was so sizzling and so windy.
“It was the psychological toughness and attempting to essentially faucet into that, perhaps unconscious, nevertheless it was slightly extra aware.”
MJ Lee – Full Championship Presentation | 03:53
Lee reached the heights of world quantity two in 2022 in an unforgettable season that included her US Girls’s Open triumph.
She received the LPGA’s Annika main award, named in honour of ten-time main champion Annika Sörenstam, for being the perfect carried out participant throughout the 5 ladies’s majors that 12 months.
Statistics that 12 months mentioned she was the perfect iron participant on the planet.
Golf Digest reported that in 2022, Lee was extra correct than each single PGA Tour participant from the golf green.
From 100 yards to 125 yards out, she put it 12 ft from the opening on common.
From 125 to 150 yards, 16.4 ft.
From 150 to 175 yards, 20 ft.
From 175 to 200 yards, 22.5 ft.
Lee received twice extra on the LPGA in 2023 however there have been warning indicators on these numbers.
If she was hitting that shut on a regular basis, she may have been successful extra typically.
Then, a winless drought of precisely 20 months ensued.
For the common tour skilled, such a niche is frequent, however for Lee it was trigger for alarm.
Apart from a greater than two-year hole impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, it was Lee’s longest stretch between wins on the LPGA.
Her world rating slipped to twenty fourth earlier than her Girls’s PGA success – nevertheless it jumped to sixth because of this.
The downturn prompted information articles and questions on her decline, however the exterior noises have been nothing in comparison with the inner ones.
“I’m my very own hardest critic,” Lee mentioned.
“I really feel like due to the expectations I do placed on myself, every time I don’t attain a sure purpose or one thing that I actually wish to do, it does harm me greater than I feel.”
She added: “I don’t actually work on something new. It’s all the time the identical patterns and I’m simply attempting to get that one per cent higher with the identical patterns I’ve had my complete profession.
“It’s simply so powerful to be good.”
Lee’s recreation merely eluded her throughout that winless spell.
Her chic ball-striking was largely nonetheless on present week-in, week-out, typically rating extremely in strokes gained off the tee and together with her strategy play.
However Lee languished on the greens.
Constantly burning the sting of the cup prompted a change in tack in the beginning of this 12 months because the broomstick putter was adopted like fellow Australian main champion Adam Scott.
Because it did for Scott on the 2013 Masters, the lengthy putter labored wonders for Lee on the Girls’s PGA.
“I struggled with my placing for the previous couple of years,” Lee mentioned.
“I feel folks have touched on it right here and there, nevertheless it’s actually easy. It was that and it was form of seeping by the opposite components of my recreation.
“It grinded extra in me as an individual. I didn’t actually discover an excessive amount of objective or motivation in that point.
“Clearly if the profession that’s a lot of your id shouldn’t be going effectively, it’s going to be laborious.
“I attempted a variety of issues. I attempted to grind it out. So, I really feel like all the nice issues which might be taking place are as a result of I grinded and caught to the issues that I believed in essentially the most.”
There was no distinct turning level for Lee on the greens.
Slightly it was a gradual accumulation of confidence by “little bits of validation” as Lee put it.
A robust end throughout a weekend or compiling stable placing stats all through a event constructed up her perception.
So too did having a number of shoulders to lean on.
Coach Ritchie Smith, who relies out of Perth and likewise works with Minjee’s PGA Tour taking part in little brother Min Woo in addition to world No.11 Hannah Inexperienced, is steadily on the opposite finish of Lee’s calls to dissect her recreation.
However conversations with the likes of Inexperienced and different members of Australia’s tight-knit LPGA contingent as helped her by the disappointing instances.
Inexperienced was one in every of a number of Australians, together with fellow golfers and help employees, to take nice enjoyment of spraying Lee with champagne on the 18th inexperienced on the ladies’s PGA.
It has develop into accustom among the many Australians, who steadily hit the fitness center, taking part in observe rounds and eat dinner collectively whereas on the street, to share in one another’s success.
“That was such a particular second as a result of Tour is such a lonely life-style,” Lee mentioned.
“You journey quite a bit, you’re away from your loved ones however simply to have such an excellent group of ladies that deliver a little bit of the Aussie flare, jogs my memory of house and retains me grounded slightly bit.”
Lee is hopeful of recreating such scenes within the coming weeks, not to mention the approaching years.
The fourth ladies’s main of the 12 months tees off on Thursday night AEST on the Evian Championship in France, the place Lee claimed her maiden main title in 2021.
She stormed house from seven pictures again at the start of the ultimate spherical to prevail in a playoff.
It is usually the place she made her main debut again in 2014, ending tied sixteenth as a youngster who was then the primary ranked newbie golfer on the planet.
Her historical past on the occasion, coupled with a significant victory in her final begin, makes it clear to see why Lee returns to the Evian Resort filled with confidence.
“Going again there I get all of the feels,” Lee mentioned.
“Being an Evian champion is sort of cool. It all the time simply jogs my memory of how far I’ve come.
“I actually like it there. Nice views, fairly good climate. Hopefully no rain, it’s an exquisite place.”
Later this month is when Lee will actually have a shot at historical past, nonetheless.
When she tees off at Royal Porthcawl on July 31, Lee will formally start her hunt for the profession grand slam.
Instantly after her Girls’s PGA triumph, she didn’t even realise that she moved only one step away from the illustrious feat.
Regardless of the LPGA making the transfer to 5 majors a 12 months in 2013, they nonetheless recognise successful 4 totally different majors as a profession grand slam, given the calendar historically included 4 per 12 months.
If a participant wins all 5, as Webb did, it’s referred to as the tremendous profession grand slam.
So, on the Welsh Hyperlinks, Lee has the possibility to develop into a profession grand slam winner, which might be a big step in the direction of her Corridor of Fame ambitions.
“I really feel actually excited to go play,” she mentioned of the Girls’s Open.
“I’ve by no means been to Wales and that’s the place it’s this 12 months. I really feel extra excited than something.
“I don’t really feel an excessive amount of stress in the meanwhile, however perhaps once I get there (I’ll).
“I’ll give it my finest shot regardless.”