Masters 2022: Minjee Lee steals the show while caddying for her brother at Augusta
Caddying for younger brother Min Woo Lee in the Par 3 contest, Australian star Minjee Lee had the Augusta crowd in shock. This is why.
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Minjee Lee, the world’s No. 4 ranked women’s golfer, has upstaged the boys at Augusta.
Caddying for younger brother Min Woo Lee in Wednesday’s Par 3 contest, Minjee stuck a wedge at the eighth hole that matched Collin Morikawa’s shot.
“It was really fun – a priceless experience,” Minjee said of her Masters hit out.
“I’m not sure if they (the galleries) recognised me or not. Maybe not.
“This is my first time here and it’s a pretty special place – and fun to be able to root for someone in my family.”
Minjee, who won her first major championship last year, said she was hopeful the women’s game was edging closer to staging its own event at Augusta National.
“It’s going in the right direction,” she said.
“We are playing at much more prestigious places for our majors and hopefully in the future we will be able to get an event here.
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“Maybe it won’t be straight away, but I sure think, hopefully in the near future, we will have an opportunity to be able to play here.”
The nine-time LPGA winner said her younger sibling was lapping up his first experience at the Masters, playing in the group in front of Tiger Woods, Fred Couples and Justin Thomas in a practice round on Wednesday.
“He’ll do his best when he’s having fun,” she said.
Min Woo said the chance to join his sister at one of the world’s most famous golf clubs was “awesome”.
“The whole family is here. It’s really exciting,” he said.
Asked about the crowd’s reaction when Minjee nailed her wedge, he said: “They had no idea up there, and I’m like, ‘she’s got a major to her name’”.
The 23-year-old hits off in the morning groups on Thursday.
“Obviously, there’s going to be some nerves there, but no expectations – I’m here to enjoy it and have fun,” he said.
“It’s just an amazing place and the course is spectacular.”
SMITH TO START MASTERS WITH TIGER ON HIS TAIL
Masters mullet man Cameron Smith says he wants “to do it for Australia” but first he’ll have to navigate an outbreak of Tigermania.
World No. 6 Smith has been drawn to play in the group ahead of Tiger Woods on Thursday morning and Friday afternoon where monster galleries will be scrambling for vantage spots to catch a glimpse of the golfing legend.
2013 Masters winner Adam Scott will play alongside world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and American long-bomber Tony Finau.
“I’m not a bookmaker, but I think I’ve been playing generally well, and I really like playing here,” Scott, 41, said of his chances.
“I’m comfortable here. I’ve addressed a few things in my golf game that are moving in the right direction. At the top level … there’s fine lines between contending, winning, and being one of the top players in the world.
“There’s no reason why, if I find a nice rhythm out on the golf course this week, I can’t be right there at the end on Sunday.”
Marc Leishman starts his Masters campaign in an afternoon slot and Min Woo Lee, whose LPGA Tour pro sister Minjee Lee will caddie for him at Wednesday’s par 3 competition, tees off on Thursday morning.
Bendigo’s Lucas Herbert drew US bad boy Patrick Reed, while rookie Cameron Davis, the last of the six Australians in the field, is grouped with former champion Bernhard Langer.
“Hopefully we can make another run of it, one of us,” Leishman said.
Wild weather and a tornado warning forced the abandonment of Tuesday’s practice rounds but Smith, a short game specialist coming off victory at last month’s Players’ Championship, said he hoped the Augusta greens stayed fast.
“The course is probably the best I’ve seen it – hopefully we don’t get too much rain … I think that may ruin the condition of it and the playability a little bit,” Smith said.
“Fingers crossed we get a firm and fast one over the weekend.
I don’t know if people truly understand what this must be like. I struggle to wrap my head around it sometimes. It’s MONDAY #TigerWoods#themasterspic.twitter.com/C4xOJ3WaZO
— Dave Ross (@drosssports) April 4, 2022
“I’m out there to play my best golf and I want to do it for Australia, but at the same time, one shot at a time, just trying to hit good shots.
“I think (Augusta) just allows me to be creative. Reminds me a lot of home, the sand belt courses, kind of firm and fast. You have to be smart around here, too.”
Augusta legends Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson – winners of a combined 11 Masters – will serve as honorary tournament starters on Thursday morning.
SMITH ‘ABSOLUTELY MADE’ TO TAKE DOWN AUGUSTA
Tiger Woods’ long-time caddie says Augusta National “is absolutely made” for Australian young gun Cameron Smith.
Steve Williams, Woods’ bagman for three of his five Masters victories, is tipping world No. 6 Smith to back up his recent Players’ Championship win and become the second Australian to slip on a green jacket.
“Cameron will be incredibly inspired when he gets back to Augusta this year,” Williams said.
“He’s already had some success there (tied for second two years ago).
“He’s confident in what he does and he plays very quickly. He and his caddie make quick decisions and then they go – I like that.
“He’s got incredible determination and he would know that the next step in his career is a major championship and that he’s capable of doing it.
“Augusta is absolutely made for him. He’s a great putter, he draws the ball – I mean it’s just a perfect fit – and he could very easily be the second Australian to slip that green jacket on.”
Williams, who was on Adam Scott’s bag for his historic Masters win in 2013, said he would not be surprised to see the 41-year-old in the mix on Sunday.
“I’ve talked to Adam just recently. His head is in a great space, he’s striking the ball beautifully and he’s putting well, so it would come as no surprise Sunday afternoon that he was in the thick of it,” Williams said.
“He has played Augusta enough times and has had success there. It’s very calming when you walk in there and you go into that champion’s locker room. That gives you a great sense of confidence that you are in a locker room that is for champion’s only and you are one of those people fortunate enough to have won it.
“To win at Augusta you’ve got to be so patient and you’ve got to know the golf course. Seldom does someone come along and the first time there they are in contention – Fuzzy Zoeller is the only rookie to ever win there and it probably won’t ever happen again.
“Adam has had success there. He’s hit those shots that were required down the stretch. I’m fully expecting him to have a great championship.”
As for the future of Woods, 46, Williams is less optimistic.
“Listening to his speech at the Golf Hall of Fame, indicating that his appearances are going to be very limited, I think it would be very difficult to get prepared properly like he would want to for a tournament like Augusta,” he said.
“I think it is probably highly unlikely that he would win the Masters again or any other major championship.
“But hey look, he’s Tiger Woods and you never put anything past him.”
On his former boss Greg Norman, who is fronting plans for a Saudi Arabia-backed breakaway golf league, Williams said: “Greg has always had this vision that he thought that there was a great opportunity to have a premier golf league where you have got the best players in the world competing together in X amount of events around the world.
“He had Kerry Packer’s backing way back when but it was very difficult when he was playing at the time and had a lot going on.
“But in any kind of sport there is always room for a better product. Now whether they think they can have a better product than the PGA Tour, who knows?
“Everything has to be looked at and I think there is some merit to it.”
GLORY OF AUGUSTA: TIGER’S CADDIE ON GOLF’S GREATEST SHOW
Steve Williams saw it all carrying a bag for Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, Raymond Floyd and Adam Scott across 30 consecutive US Masters.
But it’s the “spine chilling” roars of the Augusta “patrons” when the greatest show in golf reaches its Sunday climax that the retired caddie says he won’t forget.
“It’s fascinating how the roars at Augusta are almost like echoes,” Williams reflects.
“You hear the first roar and then seconds later you sort of get the second wave of it, particularly on the back nine where some of those greens are a little bit lower and the sound is bouncing off the pine trees.
“It’s pretty spine chilling when you are there and you are a part of it. And of course, you know exactly who all the roars are for.”
Jack Nicklaus’ birdie putt at the 17th green in 1986 en route to a 18th major victory at age 46 was probably the clubhouse leader for guttural Augusta roars until Woods’ remarkable 2005 chip-in at the par 3 16th to help force a playoff against Chris DiMarco.
“That’s the lowest point on the golf course and the roar was absolutely deafening,” Williams says.
“In my time on a golf course I haven’t experienced anything like that.”
Woods’ tee shot had flown the green to an area both Williams and the golfing legend had never been.
“As we were walking from the tee to the green, Tiger kept asking me what’s over there and I said, ‘I don’t know – I’ve never been over there’. It was an impossible shot,” he says.
“He could stand there for the rest of his life and never do that but he actually said to me ‘there’s a ball mark’ – and he pointed it out – ‘and if I land it on that ball mark, I think I can get it reasonably close’.
“The chip shot wasn’t lying that well but when he hit it, it landed exactly on that ball mark and I was like, ‘Whoa’. It was pretty amazing and the rest is history.”
Williams, 58, who partnered with Woods for 13 major championships, including three of his five green jackets and 63 PGA Tour wins, says Augusta National’s powerful sense of history never faded across his three decades caddying at the Masters.
“The first thing I always think about is driving down Magnolia Lane. If you get the opportunity to drive down that lane, you know you are working for someone who has achieved something incredibly special,” Williams said.
“And what strikes you is just the pure beauty of the grounds and how well it is kept. “Obviously, there is no budget at a place like Augusta and so everything is immaculate. It’s perfect.
“It’s one place that you know that every top golf professional has been and it’s one the most exclusive clubs in the world to be a member of, and so you feel pretty privileged to get inside the gates of a place like that.”
Retired from caddying and living a quiet life at home in New Zealand, Williams is torn between two favourite Masters moments.
“It’s a tough question, because I’ve had a few, but I would have to say when Tiger completed his victory there in 2001 to hold all four major championships,” Williams said.
“Given that the PGA Championship finishes in August and the Masters is not until April, and that’s the next major championship – all of the talk for months was centred around ‘can Tiger win the Masters and hold all four championships at once?’
“But maybe I’ve got two favourite Masters moments because I’d put that up there with caddying for Adam (Scott) when he won in 2013.”
It was Williams whom Scott credits with picking the right read on a 12-foot birdie putt at 10 in a sudden-death playoff against Argentina’s Angel Cabrera.
“To be on the bag for the first Australian to win the Masters was pretty special. So I’d put them together,” he says.
On the strategy required to win a green jacket, Williams says: “The biggest key to Augusta is the placement of your second shot on the green because you can’t continually leave yourself putts that are very difficult to two-putt.
“Your distance control there has to be better than any other course you play. And even today, there is definitely an advantage to a player who can draw the ball at will.
“If you stand on that 10th tee and you can’t aim it down the right side and draw it and get the slope, it becomes a very long hole. On 13, those players who can stand up there and draw the ball around the corner and hit a seven or eight iron in, as opposed to those players who play straight out with a 3 or a 4-iron – it’s a massive difference.
“No. 2, 9 and 5 are other holes where predominantly a draw is better – so there are five holes on that course where if you can draw a ball at will, and that is your natural shot (you have an advantage) … Lee Trevino never won at Augusta, Bruce Lietzke never did well at Augusta, two guys that couldn’t draw the ball – only faded the ball.
“And if you look at the players that have frequently been in contention there – Greg Norman, Fred Couples, Ernie Els and even Adam (Scott) – guys that can draw the ball have got an advantage over a guy that can’t.
“A guy that fades the ball, I’m not saying that he can’t win the tournament, but it has to be an extra special week for him.”
Augusta’s hardest hole? “The fifth is certainly one of the most difficult and underrated holes,” Williams says.
“I think it’s the best hole on the golf course, one of the greatest par 4s in the world.”
But it’s putting on Augusta’s slick and undulating greens where legends are made.
“Tiger’s whole stroke was about what he would call releasing the putter, a little bit open on the way back and a little bit closed on the way through – it’s a very, very consistent strike,” he says.
“The ball comes off the centre of the face at perfect speed all the time and that’s what he would focus on at Augusta.
“You’ve got to have a perfect stroke and because the greens are so good and so fast, the blade has to be dead square. Putts that are just a little bit off don’t go in on greens like that.
“Ben Crenshaw was a very successful putter and he was the same way – door open to door closed and Tiger liked that stroke at Augusta on the very, very quick greens.
“They aren’t the quickest greens but they are quick because of the undulation. The putts that are dead flat, the players face those speed greens all the time, it’s just the slope and the break that makes it very daunting. That’s why one of the keys to the course is second shot placement.
“If 70-75 per cent of your putts are uphill there, you’re not going to have many three putts. Three putt avoidance is absolutely huge at Augusta.”
As for the distance debate and fears the next generation of bombers led by Bryson DeChambeau will soon overpower Augusta National, Williams isn’t buying it.
“I don’t think they need to make any additional changes to the course, despite the ball going further, because they have a huge advantage with that sub-air system under the greens, so they can always keep the greens firmer,” he says.
“Firm greens and difficult pin placements is perfect for a good set up at Augusta. Everyone knows that in normal spring conditions, eight to 12-under is always a very good score there. Seldom, unless conditions get really tough, does anyone shoot outside that number to win the tournament.
“The golf course is absolutely perfect.”
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