Behind a screen from the other side of the world, Australia’s golf coach to the stars is telling home truths to his most accomplished student.

Ritchie Smith knows the best thing about Minjee Lee as a golfer is her robotic tendencies, for long days on the range, to the process for each shot she plays in a tournament, to life outside the tour bubble. Birdie, bogey, it doesn’t seem to matter, Lee always had that gentle smile and polite wave to her fans.

Ritchie Smith also knows the worst thing about Minjee Lee as a golfer is her robotic tendencies, the lack of any real emotion, the fear of risking it all, the completely reasonable complex of not wanting to feel ashamed on a big stage, the retreat to feeling comfortable.

“I don’t care if you lose, but be vulnerable because you’ll win more if you’re vulnerable,” Smith told her.

“I don’t want you to finish 20th each week. You can do that on your ear. It’s a s--- position to be in.”

Lee listened.

Her caddie, Michael Paterson, who once was on Karrie Webb’s bag for 15 years, also took note of Smith’s brutal sermon on the eve of the Women’s PGA Championship in Texas.

“He (Paterson) thinks the talk Ritchie gave her at the start of last week was one of the reasons they got it done,” Webb said of her former caddie’s experience with Lee at the PGA.

It’s been almost a week since Lee etched her name into Australian golfing immortality with the third major win of her career, matching Jan Stephenson. She has surpassed Greg Norman, and is two clear of Adam Scott and Jason Day. Of her compatriots, only Webb (seven) and Peter Thomson (five) have more.

But for the last 12 months, her inner circle has delicately embarked on their toughest project yet: Rebuilding Minjee.

It’s easy to forget now, but a little over a year ago Lee seemed destined to win her third major and second US Open. She led by three during the final round in Pennsylvania, only to spectacularly collapse to shoot a closing eight-over 78, finishing seven shots adrift of the winner.

“It was f------ awful, excuse my language,” Smith says. “It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever seen, someone so powerful just … capitulate almost. And that’s really embarrassing for her.

“When you’re embarrassed in one of the biggest events in the world and one of the biggest collapses of all time in that event … that’s a hard thing to get over. People don’t realise how hard it is to get in front of a viewing audience of millions, and put yourself out there again.”

In the next eight tournaments, Lee finished inside the top 20 just once. She was never a factor in the fourth women’s major of the year, the Evian Championship, and missed the cut in the fifth, the British Open.

By the time she flew back to Australia at the end of 2024, Smith was ready to rip almost everything up and start anew. Smith said Lee started viewing practice as a “real drag”, so he created an environment she would be comfortable in.

He told her she was switching to a long putter to help improve her game on the greens (statistically, she’s vaulted to eighth on the LPGA Tour this year for strokes gained in putting). He asked her to stop overthinking. And importantly, he’s progressively asked her to start embracing her emotions.

“I know what Ritchie is talking about,” Webb says. “She has had some big disappointments in the last couple of years. Maybe sub consciously she was protecting herself from that.

“She’s a really talented person, but she’s really shy. The shyness was forced out of me pretty quickly, and I sympathise with that. I understand it. I respect the fact she doesn’t try to be anyone other than herself.

“Giving herself a kick in the pants at the right time (helps). I probably punched myself in the face too much, whereas I think she could do with, every once in a while, giving herself a talking to and saying, ‘come on, get on with it. This is not good enough’.”

Even for rusted-on golf insiders, it’s hard to know the real Minjee Lee.

While her younger brother Min Woo, who won his first American-based PGA Tour event this year, basks in his social media stardom and wears a chef’s hat on course to work a gallery, Minjee can go weeks and months without posting to her platforms.

The siblings featured in an Australian Story episode last year. At one stage, Min Woo predicted it would be Minjee’s year. Almost sensing her dwindling confidence, even before the US Open nightmare, Min Woo turned to her and said: “Not you think you can, you will.”

After labouring to the finish of his own PGA Tour event on Monday morning (AEST), Min Woo stood in front of a sponsor backdrop and signed off his congratulatory message with a “love you”. He knew she could, and she did.

Minjee’s corporate appeal is largely skewed to the golf-mad Asian countries, but sponsorship dollars from Australia have almost been non-existent. She’s proud of her heritage and makes semi-regular visits to Korea, but was aghast when a journalist once asked a question of her in Korean. She insists she only wants to speak English to the media.

In her formative years on the LPGA Tour, she was largely accompanied by her mother, Clara, and had few friends on the circuit. Why be close to them when you have to beat them?

But as time has passed, her fellow professionals have seen her open up, to the point Australians Hannah Green and Grace Kim, as well as New Zealand’s Lydia Ko, were among the throng who mobbed her once she sunk the winning putt at Fields Ranch East.

“She doesn’t necessarily show that to the media and people watching at home, but she’s allowed people into her world,” Webb says.

But has the world, particularly Australia, ever truly recognised how good she is?

“When they talk about the best female athletes in Australia, she’s often not in that conversation,” says Webb, who recognised from an early age Lee’s prodigious talent and had her as a scholarship winner. “She should certainly be in that conversation all the time.

“The excuse is we play most of our year overseas, but the same could be said for any of the Matildas. We only see them a couple of times a year (in Australia) and they’re some of the most celebrated and decorated athletes in Australia.”

Lee is now within reach of the career grand slam and a Hall of Fame ascension.

“I really wanted to be in the Hall of Fame,” she says. “That’s why I started golf.”

At 29, she’s now up to No.6 in the world and could play for many more years. Others close to her wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t.

“She’s certainly a generational player and a great ambassador for our sport and our country,” Smith says. “And she’s smiling a lot now. She’s fresh and excited to be out there.”