SOUTHERN PINES, NORTH CAROLINA | You had to be paying little to no attention not to see this one coming. Yes, Jin Young Ko is still the No. 1 player in the Rolex Rankings – a fairways-and-greens machine who grinds opponents into the ground with her mistake-free precision – and, yes, Nelly Korda lurks not far behind, coming back from surgery and a huge scare involving a blood clot in her left arm to make an admirable run at the U.S. Women’s Open. But the hottest player in the game is the world’s newest No. 3, a 26-year-old Aussie with a bright smile and arguably the best golf swing of anyone, man or woman.
Watching our latest major champion Minjee Lee hit a mid-iron is like reading Faulkner with a tawny port, Count Basie in the background, the light set at a golden glow. Words such as “elegant” and “silky” get thrown around often. Her rhythm is metronomic, an allegretto back and forth that is somewhere between a porch swing and crashing waves off the Great Barrier Reef. Her head remains so still that the round John Lennon shades Lee wore all week never wiggled askew, just as her Fred Astaire footwork never slipped or bobbled, even when standing in the sandy native areas that pass for rough in this area of the world.
She’s always had a swing worth watching, as if a perfect plane and flawless hip action can be transferred through osmosis. The holdup has been her putting. But that has shown remarkable, steady improvement, starting the middle of last year and carrying through to Pine Needles, where she captured this U.S. Women’s Open by mastering the delicate undulations of this Donald Ross masterpiece like no one else.
Her rhythm is metronomic, an allegretto back and forth that is somewhere between a porch swing and crashing waves off the Great Barrier Reef.
Through three rounds, Lee was second in the field in strokes gained putting, a stat in which she ranked 144th on the LPGA Tour for the year. During those same three rounds she was tied for fifth in greens hit in regulation. Combine those two, and it was no surprise when Lee set a 54-hole scoring record of 200, nipping Juli Inkster’s previous record from Old Waverly in 1999 by a shot.
On Sunday, Lee, who normally arrives two hours before her tee times and eats in player dining, rolled into the valet lot at Pine Needles at 1:14 p.m., an hour, 20 minutes before she and Mina Harigae got it airborne. Lee drove her red courtesy Lexus to the course, alone, no agents, no family, no caddie or friends. She hopped out wearing her golf shoes and was through the gate in 12 seconds, all business. She was the only player teeing off after noon to arrive without an entourage.
Then, Lee went to work, adding to her overnight three-shot lead by making birdie on the par-5 first hole as one of the only players in contention to hit the putting surface in two. She followed by rolling in a bomb from 40 feet on the second for another birdie to stretch the lead to five. After that, observers on the ground began to wonder whether she would become the first player, man or woman, to touch 17-under par in a U.S. Open. One of her few errant iron shots at the par-3 fifth led to the first bogey. Another followed, as well as a short miss for birdie on the eighth, keeping Lee at 13-under par where she’d started the final round.
A couple of good par saves and a birdie at the par-4 12th put this one out of reach. In the end, the margin of victory was four over Harigae, a coronation for a new Australian queen and a player who will be watched for years to come.
Two events in Lee’s life led to this moment. The first was her victory at the 2021 Amundi Evian Championship where she roared to the front with a 64 on Sunday and then birdied the first playoff hole to beat Jeongeun Lee6. There’s something about getting that first major, proving to yourself that you belong in rarified air. Since draping herself in the Aussie flag at Evian, Lee has won the Cognizant Founders Cup (three weeks ago) and now the game’s biggest title, the U.S. Women’s Open, while leading most of the KPMG Performance ball-striking stats.
The second is the rise of her younger brother, Min Woo Lee, a DP World Tour winner who played in his first Masters in April as Minjee caddied for him in the Wednesday Par 3 Contest. Both can say that there is no sibling rivalry (and they do), but Minjee has gotten substantially longer – 10 yards in added average driving distance in 12 months – since her brother became one of the longest hitters in golf.
The Lees entered the week as the only brother-sister combo to win USGA junior championships – Minjee a decade ago when she beat Alison Lee (no relation) in the U.S. Girls’ Junior at Lake Merced near San Francisco, and Min Woo in the 2016 U.S. Junior when he beat Noah Goodwin at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee.
Now, Minjee Lee is a U.S. Open champion. And the sky looks limitless.
Top: Her silky-smooth swing carries Minjee Lee to victory at Pine Needles.
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