Let her cook! Minjee Lee savours ‘really special’ major No.3
Minjee Lee has become a three-time major champion with her victory at the Women’s PGA Championship in Texas, yet the quiet achiever forever flies under the radar in Australian sport.
Ash Barty is on track to have more kids than majors. Minjee Lee has just accrued as many majors as Barty. It’s quite the life accomplishment.
She hugged her Women’s PGA Championship trophy like an oversized, chubby-cheeked bundle of joy she might wrap in a blanket and take home to cherish for all her remaining days.
Lee is 29 years of age.
Over the moon after becoming a three-time major champion and forever under the radar in Australian sport. The quiet achiever’s quiet achiever who couldn’t get a word in while growing up alongside her extroverted brother, Minwoo, in Perth, and still barely makes a peep, other than “yep, yep” to her caddie, triumphed in Texas on Monday morning (Australian time) after grappling then holding down memories of a pair of her nightmarish, confidence-jarring shockers at recent editions of the US Open.
“I just want to be clear,” Lee said after navigating her final 18 holes with a trademark poker face amid sweltering heat, gusty winds and ticklish pin positions at Texas’s PGA Frisco course.
“I definitely was nervous starting the day. I wasn’t really sure if it was the heat that was making my heart beat more … I looked calm but I wasn’t as calm as everybody thinks.”
Nightmare #1: Lee was joint US Open leader at Lancaster Country Club last year before putting like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack to post a ruinous eight-over-par 78.
Nightmare #2: In the same tournament this year at Erin Hills – isn’t she a WBBL commentator? – Lee was again in the hunt before putting like Judge Smails in Caddyshack to card a five-over 77.
To halt the double (bogey), double (bogey), toil and trouble in her short game, to stop the witches cackling, she placed her trust in a broomstick putter in Texas. All came good as if cured by eye of newt and toe of frog. Let her cook!
“It feels pretty amazing,” she said after pocketing $2.8m and joining Karrie Webb, Jan Stephenson and Hannah Green as Australia’s only Women’s PGA Championship winners.
“I feel like I really deserve this one. I put a lot of hard work into it so yeah, it feels really special. I think only three other names on this trophy are Australians and it’s just such a great privilege to be able to have my name up there with them. I guess it shows the grit of the Aussies. It means a lot.”
There’s five women’s golf majors. Which is one too many.
They lack the gravitas of tennis’s slams or the men’s golf majors because five is gluttonous. Five is taking the mickey. Five is overdoing it.
Men’s and women’s tennis, and men’s golf, have their four majors, all diamonds in the sky, perfect foursomes, while women’s golf suffers from its overindulgence.
Still, a win is a win, and a three-time major champion is a three-time major champion and Lee now stands alongside Webb (seven), Peter Thomson (five) and Stephenson (three) as Australia’s greatest champions.
Lee requires only the Women’s British Open, to be staged in the blustery, billowing winds of Wales’ Royal Porthcawl from July 30, and the crudely named Chevron Championship, done and dusted for this year, to draw alongside Webb, Mickey Wright, Louise Suggs, Annika Sorenstam, Juli Inkster, Pat Bradley and Inbee Park as the only players to win the women’s career grand slam.
“That’s my ultimate goal,” she said. “I really want to be in the Hall of Fame. That’s why I started golf and that’s why I wanted to be on the LPGA Tour. To win a bunch of tournaments and try and get into it.”
Perhaps she should wait by her letterbox while belting out The Script’s song for wannabe inductees: “Standin’ in the Hall of Fame! And the world’s gonna know your name!”
New Zealand’s Lydia Ko became a Hall of Famer after winning two majors but then again Ko, Lee’s friend and foe, was World No.1 and Olympic champion.
“Seeing Lydia do it, I think I just would really like to get there,” Lee said after her Kiwi mate and Green sprayed her with a champagne supernova near the clubhouse.
“We’ll see how we go after this week.”
Lee held a four-stroke lead entering the final round, a nerve-racking experience in itself, ensuring only a fitful, frightened sleep, before she surrendered her advantage with three bogeys in four holes on the front nine. That’s when you could hear the theme music to Jaws, or the Great White Shark, and that’s when Lee could have been crippled by her US Open demons, and that’s when her mother, Clara, joked to American media, “Just watching her, I’m 10 years older.” Lee rallied to finish with a two-over 74, for a grand tally of four under 284 for the tournament, winning by three strokes from American Auston Kim and Thailand’s Chanettee Wannasaen and reversing her mother’s ageing process. suddenly, Clara looked 10 years younger than she did 10 years ago.
“I had ups and downs,” she said. “I felt like some shots were going my way and some weren’t,” she said. “I just said, ‘Stick to my game plan’. It’s a battle against myself pretty much, especially with how tough the conditions were all week, amplified because it was major Sunday.
“I saw every single leaderboard and knew pretty much where I was all of today. I just tried to check the scores then come back to each shot and try and execute. I really played within myself today.”
Minwoo’s trademark cry of ‘Let him cook!’ – eye of newt and toe of frog? – is enjoyable banter and self-promotion even if the 26-year-old and his chef’s hat don’t deserve to be in the same kitchen as big sister.
He talks (and plays) a big game but regardless of future world rankings, he’ll never rise higher than No.2 in his own family. They’re a stellar pair of siblings and he was endlessly encouraging while she slogged through the two-year title drought she ended in Texas.
After stumbling to 64th at the Travellers Championship at Cromwell, Connecticut, Minwoo was asked by the American broadcaster to send a message to his sister.
“I’m so proud of you,” he said. “The last couple of years have been tough and I’m glad to see you back in the winner’s circle. I’m proud of you and, ah, love you.”
Ah, Minjee swooned when seeing the clip and replied, “That’s so sweet. We don’t get to see each other too much. I feel like I see him more on social media than anything. I do miss him on the road.
“Just seeing that makes me a little bit emotional. It’s just really nice to know that you have your family supporting you no matter where you are in the world. Even if you’re miles apart.”
Broomstick putters are not especially pleasing on the eye, and they make the old diehards in Scotland choke on their whiskies because they reckon it’s cheating, but they helped Adam Scott win the Masters and the big cumbersome contraptions, the Hills hoists of short sticks, invariably do what they’re designed to do: get the ball in the hole and place oversized, chubby-cheeked trophies in the hands of supreme ball strikers.
Lee was ranked 137th on the LPGA Tour last year for strokes gained in putting. This year she’s fifth. Frisco was disco – she topped the putting charts in this event.
“Switching to the broomstick has given me a lot more freedom,” she said. “I used to have a lot of thoughts and I was overthinking probably about the conventional way of putting.”
Barty, who has added two children to her three majors, was Australia’s darling in her pomp. Lee has matched her majors’ tally in another great global vocation and yet doesn’t attract half the attention.
You rarely read or hear about her unless she’s in the hunt at a major. You might not have known the Women’s PGA Championship was on until the Lee clan’s real masterchef won it. “Yep, yep,” she kept nodding at her caddie until her broomstick smoothed her final three-footer into an angelically white cup.
“This win is different because I’ve had a lot of doubt the past few years,” Minjee said.
“Not with my long game, more with my putting. The more I heard media and other people saying things about the putting, it got to me more and more over time, so I think this one just means a little bit more to me.
“The US Open is my absolute favourite but in terms of my most deserved win, this one is the one.”
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