How Australia’s Min Woo Lee went from social media star to bona fide Masters chance
Min Woo Lee will arrive at Augusta this week as Australia’s top-ranked Masters hopeful. The 26-year-old social media star isn’t your average golfer – but his rise to the top is more traditional than you think.
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To seasoned golf pros, Min Woo Lee is a head scratcher.
Video gamer, social media influencer, prankster and a devout foodie who based himself in Las Vegas partly because the grub was great.
And while blessed with a sublime golfing talent, Lee admits he’ll never take himself too seriously.
“I’m very Australian. Very laid-back, very chilled,” the son of South Korean immigrants says.
“I try to be funny and I try to joke around. I’m not that serious.
“Last week (when he won his first PGA Tour event in Houston holding off world No.1 Scottie Scheffler), I probably was a lot more serious.
“I was just really trying to keep my head down and trying to focus on the next shot.
“That’s what it takes to win tournaments.”
It’s a balance the 26-year-old “boy from Perth” – known to his 1.1 million Instagram and TikTok fans as “The Chef” and “Dr Chipinski” – has been searching for.
“I love the social media side of stuff. I kind of grew up with it and had a good opportunity to showcase some skills and funniness while playing good golf, and it’s nice to have both of them firing at the same time,” he says.
“It’s just good to inspire young kids and whoever wants to play golf and make it a bit more fun.
“I just try to be light-hearted and very honest and genuine.”
Lee’s breakthrough victory at the Houston Open saw him jump to No.22 in the world on the eve of next week’s Masters at Augusta National.
It’s the first time he’s climbed to the head of an Australian pack led by Adam Scott, Jason Day and Cameron Smith – heroes he still looks up to.
“It’s pretty surreal actually – I mean, it’s crazy,” Lee says.
“I looked up to those guys and I still do and it’s awesome to be the number one-ranked Aussie. I still feel like a little kid growing up. I don’t feel 26.
“But it’s very cool. It’s cool to be there. I feel like I inspire kids and inspire people to love and play golf. So it’s quite cool to be in the top spot in Australian golf and hopefully I can keep going.”
Most Australians who hit the big time tend to stay living in the US, but you get the sense that Lee – “a Freo Dockers man” – will head home to Western Australia as soon as his PGA Tour days are done.
“I woke up on Sunday and saw the score (from the Fremantle-West Coast derby) and it was very good to see,” Lee says.
“We haven’t had the best start, so it was quite nice to get a dub (win) on the board.
“A lot of the Freo boys play at Royal Fremantle. They are awesome boys and I love talking to them and can call them friends.
“I’m good friends with Sam Sturt and Andy Brayshaw and a couple of the others and hopefully they have a good year.”
Lee celebrated his breakthrough victory with a dinner on the Las Vegas Strip (at his favourite Yellowtail Japanese restaurant) with his team, girlfriend Gracie Drennan, friends and family, including older sister Minjee Lee, an LPGA star and two-time major winner.
Asked who picked up the bill, Lee says: “It was me. Of course, it was me. I made a nice little cheque ($2.7 million) a couple of days ago.
“My sister could have been nice and she could have got it, but it’s all good.”
The siblings are close, but rarely discuss golf.
“She’s very different to me,” Lee says.
“She is head down and bum up. She likes to do her own thing and stay in her lane, but I’m very squiggly lined, take short cuts and do whatever I want to do.
“It’s not verbal advice (that she gives), but I saw when I was a little kid that she was very hardworking and very disciplined and that’s something that I didn’t have and now I see that in the last few years – because you need to do that to be really good.”
A pivotal change in Lee’s approach was the appointment of veteran Irish caddie Brian “Bo” Martin, formerly on the bag of 2019 British Open winner Shane Lowry.
During the tense final round in Houston, it was Martin who convinced Lee to take a drop and one-stroke penalty after his wayward drive on the eighth came to rest under a bush.
“He just knows what to say,” Lee says.
“He’s been around for long enough to know and he knows … I’m a little bit fiery – and he knows it’s about the process. (He says:) ‘It’s OK, everyone hits bad shots. Just go ahead and commit to the shot that you have in hand’.
“That’s been a big part of our success. We’ve been very close. We knew we could win … it was close.
“I leant on him a lot, which was awesome.”
But the turning point in his career, Lee says, came after his capitulation at this year’s Players’ Championship in Florida.
“The main thing was the mental side of golf and my brain,” he says.
“I was in the lead before the weekend and I kind of went backwards on Saturday …
“Sometimes I let my emotional state get in my way, but I don’t think I would have known that if I didn’t kind of falter at the Players.
“That’s a learning curve and something clicked in my brain.
“I just said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do this again’. Let’s just make sure my head is in the right space and keep knocking on the door and hit one shot at a time … stop worrying about it so much, everyone is going to hit average shots, just try to be a goldfish and tick along.”
Lee has struck up friendships with NBA players and even pop star Justin Bieber, and his “Let him cook” catchcry is becoming known around the world.
“It started from a video game or a music video. Someone said it on social media and I just started saying it and then everyone followed along,” Lee explains.
“I just made it a thing. It’s my thing and The Chef started happening from that and Dr Chipinski came from chipping in a lot.
“It’s all fun and games and nice to have something associated with me.”
But after 55 PGA Tour starts without a victory, Lee admits he was starting to wonder if his game would ever match the yak.
“You’ve got to back it up (the social media) and that’s why people don’t do it,” he says.
“There’s a lot of ‘all talk and no show’ and I felt like I kind of got to that stage.
“Where there was a lot of talk, but not as good as golf that I could do.
“I needed, not a reality check, but a kick in the butt, to get a win or good finish. So I’m glad that happened.”
But breaking through won’t change him.
Even as he lined up his tap-in putt for victory, Lee stood over his line to mock the game’s contentious AimPoint method, drawing a chuckle from Scheffler watching on in the scorer’s shed.
“(I was) doing it for the people. Just for a laugh,” he says.
Originally published as How Australia’s Min Woo Lee went from social media star to bona fide Masters chance
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