Minjee Lee chats and smiles on the first tee during the pro-am before the AIG Women’s Open. Oisin Keniry, R&A via Getty Images
PORTHCAWL, WALES | If Minjee Lee were to win this week’s AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl at, say, 7 o’clock on Sunday night, it would be 2 o’clock the following morning at the family home in Perth on Australia’s west coast. News of her success would miss the morning papers and, by the following day, the coverage would be altogether less arresting.
One way and another, it was hardly surprising to learn how, in 2019, The Age of Melbourne had described Minjee as “the Invisible Champion of Australia,” and that though she had already won five events on the LPGA Tour. (The Age’s observation has always struck me as one to explain why Australians and New Zealanders – I’m thinking here of Lydia Ko and Ryan Fox to add a couple to Lee – seldom get carried away with their success.)
Like her younger brother, Min Woo, a winner on the PGA Tour, Minjee has spent half her life traveling the golfing globe. What is more, on those occasions when her parents, Soonam and Clara, fly over from Perth to see their offspring, the chances are that they can find themselves watching Min Woo in a week when Minjee is winning in a different state.
As Minjee sees it so sensibly, she and Min Woo have been blessed beyond belief in that America, home of the PGA and LPGA tours, is a golfing land where tournament volunteers help not only by managing the crowds and working on the scoreboards, but by offering hospitality to visiting players.
Though England’s Trish Johnson, the Sky commentator who has three LPGA titles to her name, is no doubt hosting friends in her house at Royal Porthcawl this week, there are few such hospitality openings for players on the Ladies European Tour. How the LET girls would love it if there were – and how their parents would love it too.
Minjee and Min Woo struck lucky with the first family who had them to stay and were good enough to take them under their wing for as long as was wanted. Today, though the pair have been successful enough on their respective tours to own a house apiece, they remain the best of friends with those original hosts.
Initially, it had meant a lot that they were able to save money but, over the years, such arrangements have changed into more than that, especially to Minjee. She has five or six other families to whom she can return on a regular basis – and it’s because of the company.
“There are times when you don’t want to stay in a hotel and be on your own,” she said at Dundonald Links during last week’s Women’s Scottish Open. “I love going back to the old friends I’ve made along the way. You have meals together and, as often as not, the hosts will come and support you when you’re playing. It’s so comforting – like having family around on a regular basis.
“All I had to do was roll out of bed, walk the two or three minutes to the course, and return to my ‘home’ after the 18 holes.” – Minjee Lee
When she won this year’s KPMG PGA Championship, her third major, her father was on his way back to Perth but her mother just happened to be in the right place at the right time to witness her victory at PGA Frisco. Meanwhile, the people who had hosted her when she first visited Dallas for an LPGA stop had come along to watch. “It was so good to see so many familiar faces out there,” said Minjee. “That happens a lot when I play in Australia but not quite so much over here. I love it when it does.”
Heaven knows how many American friends Minjee has made along the way – good friends who stay friends. Usually, when she has made arrangements to go back to one of the families, she will be armed with bottles of wine or flowers. And if the hosts and their friends ever want a collection of players’ autographs, she’s always happy to oblige.
Yet if there is one venue where she gets another version of a “home-like” feel, it is Dundonald Links. Bearing in mind all the thousands upon thousands of miles she must travel in the course of a year, the clubhouse cabins at that Scottish venue call for nothing more than a three-minute walk to the course: “All I had to do was roll out of bed, walk the two or three minutes to the course, and return to my ‘home’ after the 18 holes.”
Min Woo and Minjee Lee remain close despite the many miles they travel each year. Daniel Pockett, Getty Images
Though Minjee and Min Woo were near enough to meet up for dinner when Min Woo won his first PGA Tour title – this year’s Texas Children’s Houston Open – there was another time when there was a delightfully unexpected link of sorts between the two.
It happened on a day when Min Woo finished as well-placed in fourth at what was only his second event as a professional, the 2019 Saudi International.
Any number of oil workers and others hurried to get his autograph and he, in turn, handed out one autographed ball after another.
In the realisation that I would be seeing Minjee the following week, I asked him to give me one of those signed balls so I could hand it over to her by way of a surprise. “I doubt she’ll want it,” he said, bashfully, as he signed one specially for her.
Minjee was taking a break from some putting practice when I caught up with her.
“I have a present for you,” I said.
“Good,” she said excitedly.
So much for what Min Woo had said about how she wouldn’t care. She checked the signature and smiled the proudest of smiles.
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