Different strokes: golfers and siblings Minjee Lee and Min Woo Lee tee off
She’s the ‘scientist’ with the perfect swing. He’s her mullet-sporting moustachioed social media star brother. Minjee and Min Woo Lee are determined to beat the world – and each other.
It starts just after his name is announced at the tee.
“Wooooooooo … Wooooooo,” comes the call from the enthusiastic spectators gathered around him as he smashes the ball long and far down the fairway. It might be on the course in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Or the links of Royal Liverpool on England’s northwest coast. Or at the Macau Golf and Country Club.
And it will be heard here soon, at the Australian PGA Championship in Brisbane (November 23-26) and then at the Australian Open in Sydney (November 30 to December 3).
It happens all the time on social media too.
“Let him cook!” is another thing the crowds call out all over the world. “Let him cook!”
It’s a chant that loosely translates to say, Just stand back and let the kid do his thing.
“Let that young man cook!”
Welcome to the hottest sensation in men’s golf, 25-year-old Australian Min Woo Lee. He’s been described as golf’s “viral superstar”, the sport’s first cult hero of the TikTok era. He’s bringing “dirtbag cool” with a look – mullet, wispy moustache and sunnies – that is a million miles from country club chic.
He’s got almost 250,000 followers on TikTok; 335,000 also follow him on Instagram and another 42,000 fans check out his posts on X, formerly Twitter.
TikTok and golf? We’re talking video clips of “stingers”, a “floppaddoppollus” and the summoning of “Doctor Chipinski” – for the uninitiated, that’s respectively a hard-hit long iron shot at a lower trajectory with lots of forward spin; a high, soft lob shot that lands and stops quickly on the green; and a short chip shot that ends up in the hole.
This is the new age of golf, moving from socialising in stuffy clubs to social media in one sharply hit tee shot. And Min Woo Lee is at the forefront, loving every minute of it.
“It’s been popping off over the last year,” he says with a grin, describing the rapid growth in his social media popularity. “It’s helped my game, and I guess it has helped my branding. Which is a big thing in this world right now.
“I’ve got a moustache and a mullet and just want to go out and play, and have some fun. I want to be cool and fashionable, play golf and look good. You’ve got to have fun.”
There has been flamboyance in golf, but it has been more of the Greg Norman and Tiger Woods type (though Australian Cameron Smith’s mullet has matched his impressive game in recent years). Mostly, golfers shun controversy – at least on the course – and while the breakaway LIV Tour has promised to revolutionise the sport, so far it seems to have been mostly about letting players wear shorts and play some loud music. And now along comes Min Woo, with confidence, exuberance, a bit of humility and an excellent social media game that might shake up golf’s traditions and even make it just a bit cool.
“We have needed someone like this for years,” says Golf Australia high performance general manager Brad James, who has followed Min Woo’s progress since he was a teenager. “You wonder how many golfers we have lost in the past 20-30 years – kids like him who get told their socks are not pulled up or they’re not wearing the right colour. He just brings something different to our sport – he brings youth and a bright future.”
It is all happening for Min Woo right now. And he’s still nowhere near as good as his 27-year-old sister, Minjee Lee. She has already won two golf majors, been ranked second in the world, played in two Olympics for Australia, and has collected $21.6 million in prize money – the 11th highest total in women’s golf history. She is a bona fide Australian sports star.
Her brother is hellbent on catching up.
Min Woo has already won tournaments in Australia, Europe and Asia and finished in the top five in the US Open, one of golf’s four “major” tournaments. At the time of writing he was ranked 43rd in the world; he has taken home more than $4 million in prize money this year alone. Last month won the Macau Open, and next year he’s headed for a full-time gig on the toughest circuit of all, the gruelling PGA Tour in America.
Perhaps to stay one step ahead of her brother, a week after he won in Macau Minjee won the BMW Championship in South Korea. It might be the first time a brother and sister have won in consecutive weeks.
Min Woo also just got invited by legend Tiger Woods to join his new TGL virtual golf league in January, which will feature only 20 of the world’s best players with a multimillion-dollar, hi-tech stadium being built in Florida to host the tournament.
Minjee and Min Woo are sitting at Royal Fremantle Golf Club on a clear and sunny spring morning, talking to The Weekend Australian Magazine on a quick trip back to Perth, their hometown, between tournaments. The course is busy as a constant stream of players tee off or hole out, and there’s the occasional wave and shout of “good to see you” to the pair by people passing by. It’s a relaxed atmosphere overall, though; there are no hangers-on, nary an autograph or picture request. Unlike some interviews with successful sports stars, their manager doesn’t hover over us.
It has just been announced that the duo will put their names to a future tournament at the course that will start in 2025 on the Australian Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour; a handful of local journalists are in attendance. You’d be hard-pressed to guess that this sister and brother are, respectively, just about the best female golfer in the world and the next big thing on the men’s tour. But they are – as well as being typical siblings, and twenty-somethings, in many ways.
Min Woo sits fidgeting with his three iron, occasionally checking his phone – never rudely – while he is gently chided by his sister for needing a moustache trim.
His respect for his sister’s achievements is clear – “she’s already so close to being number one in the world, and she can get there” – and she also defends his social media presence, saying: “Most of the time we’re not doing that [social media] while we’re at the course [at a tournament]. He’s not filming himself. I think everyone loves that he’s great on social media and it’s quite fun to watch.”
Like many siblings, the duo also have a habit of finishing each other’s sentences.
When we discuss who would win should they play each other, Min Woo says in a deferential manner: “It would be close.” His sister points at her brother and says “he has the length” in terms of wood and iron shots (he is already one of the longest hitters on the tour), and he quickly retorts that “in the long run she would probably beat me” while pointing back.
“If he’s mucking around then I can beat him easily,” Minjee adds with a bit more steel. “If he’s serious then I don’t know.”
Min Woo replies: “Her iron play is way better, at the top in the world.”
Like many siblings, Min Woo is also expert at playing the annoying younger brother to his sister, who has a more calm and serious demeanour. He says he is more a “squiggly line” to Minjee’s “straight line” and he delighted in teasing her and mucking around when they were growing up.
Says their long-time coach, Ritchie Smith: “She is more introverted, he is extroverted; she is a worker and he is more a player; she’s more a scientist he is more an artist. Neither one is the wrong approach, by the way. If we could mould them together, we’d probably have the best player in the world.”
The pair’s easygoing nature while sitting next to each other belies a fierce determination to both be number one in the world one day – which would be a historic achievement for any Australian brother and sister sporting combination, let alone on the world stage.
We’ve had brother and sister Olympians, including swimmers Emma and David McKeon and, back in the 1960s, Ilsa and John Konrads. Olympic champion walker Jared Tallent competed in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 along with his sister Rachel. Then there’s cyclists Alex and Annette Edmondson, and modern pentathletes Chloe and Max Esposito.
Soccer star and Matildas captain Sam Kerr has won plenty of trophies at club level with Chelsea; her brother Daniel won an AFL grand final with West Coast.
Globally, Russian tennis players Dinara and Marat Safin are the only brother-sister pair to reach the number one ranking in the history of their sport. Minjee and Min Woo Lee say they can do the same. “I think we always had the mindset that we always could get to this stage, and now we’ve got our sights on being the number one player in the world,” Min Woo says.
“So obviously my sister has been pretty close to it [having been ranked second in the world for the first time in 2019] and that’s still a goal of hers – “for sure!” Minjee quickly interjects – “and still a goal of mine.”
Minjee estimates she has another seven years on the US Ladies PGA Tour, with next year being her 10th as a professional. “I don’t want to go longer than [the age of] 34,” she says. “I want to do other things. I’m not super close to my end goals. I want to win a lot more.”
Minjee and Min Woo were born and raised in Perth, after their mother Clara and father Soonam settled in Winthrop, in the city’s southern suburbs, after moving to Australia from South Korea in 1985.
Minjee explains that her mother’s father had been a general in the South Korean army and his family had moved around many times during Clara’s childhood. Her grandfather eventually migrated to Perth with his family, Clara took a liking to it and after returning to South Korea to marry Soonam the pair moved to the WA capital to settle and raise two children.
At the time of writing, Min Woo is virtually guaranteed to earn his full-time playing card on the US PGA Tour. It means he will play against just about all the best golfers in the world (some have joined the rival Saudi Arabian-funded LIV Tour) week after week.
“There’s 20 tours in the world of golf and the best are playing on the PGA Tour, or striving to be there,” says Ian Baker-Finch, a Queenslander who hit the big time in the 1980s, went on to win a major at the 1991 British Open and now commentates on US television. Baker-Finch points out that some of the best players, including Australia’s Cameron Smith – winner of the 2022 British Open – are also on the LIV Tour, which due to its breakaway nature and dispute with established tours doesn’t have its results count in official rankings.
“Min Woo is still only 43rd in the world, so 42 are better than him, and certainly five on the LIV Tour, so there’s a long way to go,” Baker-Finch says. “He needs to be resilient, work his arse off, and have that extreme belief and desire. We’ve had [Australians ranked] number one before in Adam Scott and Jason Day, and they will be great for Min Woo to learn from. And he can do it if he puts his mind to it.”
When it comes to Minjee, though, Baker-Finch, who has captained the past two Australian Olympic golf teams, which Minjee has played on, says he considers her to already be Australia’s second best female golfer ever. “I think Minjee is a star and potential superstar, and I don’t use that term often or lightly,” he says, pointing out that Minjee has already won 10 tournaments on the LPGA Tour alone and two majors: the US Open last year and the Evian Championship in 2021.
–
“She is the complete package: she is friendly, has a good demeanour, she presents extremely well, she is a hard worker, fit and strong and determined to be the best she can be. She has every attribute to be the best.”
Melbourne golf commentator Mark Allen says Minjee “has the best women’s golf swing I have ever seen. She has a beautiful technique and her swing looks so simple but it is just so technically correct, with a brilliant rhythm and repetition that is just magic”.
The best Australian female golfer ever is undoubtedly Karrie Webb, who won 56 tournaments in a stellar career that included seven major wins. Webb is also a big Minjee fan, telling The Weekend Australian Magazine that “she is capable of being the best in the world … and I have no doubt that she will win many more times in her career”.
Webb also believes it will benefit both Minjee and her brother being at the top of their sport, given the gruelling round of dozens of tournaments a year played around the world.
“I think it is cool to have someone else in your family that truly understands what you are going through. My family was very supportive, but they didn’t know what it was like on tour. It’s about what you’re going through, what is on your mind, different situations you find yourself in and the struggles you can go through. I think it is really cool they have each other to talk about those things with.”
It also helps that the Lee siblings come from a golfing family. Golf is a big sport in South Korea and the siblings’ parents, Clara and Soonan (a panel beater and later a cafe owner), were keen players. Women’s golf is particularly strong, and is popular more widely with the general public than in most other countries.
“Korea is like no other country when it comes to golf,” describes Webb. “You go to a shopping centre and there’s golf ads everywhere. A lot of clothing brands make golf gear. My Korean friends tell me of young people renting golf clothes and changing three times when they play so they can record their different outfits on social media. And it feels like there are a million driving ranges and golf simulator businesses.”
Clara taught golf lessons at the local driving range in Winthrop and Min Woo remembers he and his sister “would just follow her around and copy her all the time”.
Perth is a city with a sports-mad population and facilities for all codes and pursuits, but while Min Woo remembers having the talent for golf at a reasonably early age he didn’t have the desire. “It was just a little bit slower compared to basketball, swimming, soccer and all those other fast-action sports,” he says. “So golf was the lowest priority for me.”
Minjee was more interested in swimming and was for a time one of the fastest in the state for her age group. Yet golf won out, and with Minjee showing clear potential the decision was made to seek out the coaching of Ritchie Smith at the nearby Melville Glades Golf Club.
Smith – the archetypal gruff, no-nonsense, straight-talking sporting coach with a big heart and deep and vast technical knowledge of his sport – remembers what Minjee was like when he first set eyes on her. “She was quiet, quite athletic; she didn’t swing very well but she was a worker and she was diligent. You could see in her eyes that she wanted to be better, and you could see she took in everything you said.”
Meanwhile, her younger brother had taken up the clubs again, showing plenty of talent but perhaps not the same work ethic as his sister. “He was so naughty,” Minjee says with that typical hint of exasperation in her voice, matched with a perfectly timed roll of her eyes that only sisters talking about their kid brothers can conjure up.
Min Woo shrugs, agrees and says: “Yeah, I was naughty and annoying and kind of like the class clown. I was never taking anything too serious. And I still don’t.”
With that same exasperation, but also mixed with affection, Smith says of Min Woo: “He was the most annoying child. I still cop it all the time from him. He is always practical joking, doing stupid stuff, videoing me trying to catch me out eating cookies, that sort of thing. The cheeky little bugger. I love the kid, but he is annoying.”
Minjee remembers working hard on her game at one end of the driving range while her brother mucked around at the other. She also points out that fewer girls played golf when she was a teenager, which meant she often had to practise alone and then play a round with one of her parents while her brother played on the course with his friends.
While her brother mucked around, Minjee took her golf and studies more seriously, she says, so she could travel and play as she moved up the junior ranks. She was practicising up to eight hours a day by the age of 10, and at 12 she was beating her mother, who had a handicap in the single figures.
Minjee won the WA Amateur Open while still a Year 9 student, the US Girls Junior Open two years later, then two Australian Women’s Amateur championships back to back; she later became the world’s number one amateur.
She turned professional in September 2014 after leading the Australian team to victory in the Amateur Team Championship in Japan, and was immediately considered the hottest property in women’s golf.
The following year she became the seventh player in history to win an LPGA event before her 19th birthday, and she has consistently been one of the best players on tour since, breaking through to win her first major in 2021, the Evian Championship in France, and then the US Open the following year.
Minjee is ranked fourth in the world at the time of writing. After some midfield finishes this year she won the Kroger Queen City Championship on the LPGA Tour in September and then in South Korea in October.
Smith says Minjee has a weakness with her putting that they have been working on for the past 18 months, but notes that “no one works harder on their putting than Minjee. She is probably the best player in the world until she hits the putting green.”
For all her success, Webb believes Minjee has been disappointingly underrated by the Australian corporate sector – all of her sponsors are Korean or US firms – and the media. In a list of the top 50 most influential Australian female sports figures this year, Minjee was nowhere to be found even though there were other athletes placed alongside politicians, administrators and billionaires.
“Maybe it’s bad on golf for not promoting her in Australia, or her agents, but her record speaks for itself,” Webb says. “It can’t just be because she plays overseas most of the time. Sam Kerr is away 90 per cent of the year, and she is a sporting icon in Australia.”
Smith remembers the Australian golf industry gathering a year ago for the awarding of the annual Greg Norman Medal. In a year when Minjee had won the US Open, the biggest event in women’s golf, the medal instead went to British Open winner Cameron Smith. (Although to be fair, Minjee has won the Greg Norman Medal twice before.)
“I just don’t think she has been given the respect she deserves,” Smith says.
Commentator Mark Allen concurs, saying that if Min Woo were ever to win a men’s major it would likely be instantly bigger news than his sister’s achievements.
Like his sister, Min Woo won the US Open junior tournament in 2016 before turning professional in 2019. He won the Victorian Open the following year, then the Scottish Open a year later. This year he has finished in the top 10 on the US PGA Tour three times, and an impressive 5th in the US Open. In October, he won the Macau Open.
Karen Lunn, chief executive of the WPGA Tour of Australasia, believes Minjee has preferred to shun the spotlight but seems to have been enjoying it a bit more as her more flamboyant brother works his way up the ranks.
They are both likely to feature prominently, Lunn says, in the promotion of the women’s and men’s Australian Open, played concurrently in Sydney from November 30.
“It is a great story and a unique story,” she says. “And we do need to do more to promote our women golfers.”
Min Woo will likely not need much help in the self-promotion stakes.
“He is a showman, he is a show-off – that’s the way he puts it. That’s a pretty good skill to have, I would have thought,” says Smith. “She is not, she just likes to do her job. It is probably easier to perform when you’re an extrovert. Minjee is her own person, she doesn’t want everyone in her face.”
Smith does note, though, that Min Woo’s worth ethic is also finally starting to match that of his sister. The coach says that he’s seen Min Woo maturing in the past year, and has become more demanding of himself.
“For all the bravado and confidence, Min Woo is quite humble, and when he says something like ‘I can be number one in the world’ he will say it in a way that is kind of understated,” Smith says. “It flows from his mouth not in a cocky way but in a really humble way.”
That may be the case, but Min Woo simply says he also just loves the hype.
“‘Let him cook’ just came out of nowhere and I’ve just been saying it and now everyone says it and there’s a lot of ‘Woooooos’ after every shot during a round,” he says.
“It is repetitive but, you know, it’s good. You kind of dream of this sort of thing as a kid.” b
More Coverage
