WOMEN’S OPEN: Welcome Minjee Lee 2.0

BY RICK WEBER & BRENDAN JAMES

Minjee Lee has done a lot of growing up in the past 12 months.

The 19-year-old has changed. Physically, she might look the same as she did a year ago at Royal Melbourne. And the swing that has been carefully cultivated by Perth-based Ritchie Smith is pretty much the same.

But deep inside her soul, there’s a confidence and maturity that wasn’t there last year in her first Australian Open as a pro, when she basically shot herself out of the tournament with a first-round 76 and then rallied for a tied seventh finish. Or the year before at Victoria Golf Club, where she was co-leader after three rounds but blew a gasket and finished with a 78 for a tie for 11th, five strokes behind friend and mentor Karrie Webb.

Minjee Lee holds the championship trophy after winning the Kingsmill Championship. PHOTO: Hunter Martin/Getty Images.

This is what happens when you win an LPGA tournament and start figuring out how to navigate the LPGA Tour and traverse the world as a talented teenager who likes to watch Korean dramas on her Viki app and eat cookies-and cream ice cream.

“I’ve always felt like I’ve always been quite mature,” says Lee, who will line up alongside Webb and World No.1 Lydia Ko at the ISPS Handa Women’s Australian Open starting at Adelaide’s The Grange Golf Club on Thursday. “It wasn’t like I had to grow up. I just had to mature in the sense of having to be a little more organised in the things I do and the practice I do.

“It was my first year out on Tour, and I didn’t know it was going to be like this. This is what I expected it to be like, but to actually experience it is different than thinking it’s going to be like that. I practised less but managed my time better. Out here, you can get really tired and get burned out. I held out really good for the year. It’s been a really long year.

“If you do the right practice and do what suits you and what your body can take, then I guess it’s good. You see a lot of girls out here who play a lot of tournaments who have been out here for six or seven years, so I guess that’s what’s right for them. I just need to find out what’s right for me. Only you can find out what’s right for you. No one else can tell you.”

Looking fresh at The Grange after her Tuesday practice round, Lee said the lessons learned from her rookie year will help her be a better player in 2016.

Lee walks with World No.1 Lydia Ko. The two are good friends but fierce competitors during events. PHOTO: Stanley Chou/Getty Images.

“I have matured,” she said. “I think that helps to make better decisions under pressure … you have better judgment, on and off the course. I can make better decisions on and off the course, like with practice. I definitely know now what suits my body and what doesn’t.”

Smith says she used to be a bit naïve about the complexities of the world because she was so focused on golf, but that’s changed now.

“I think she handles pressure very well, particularly on the golf course,” says Smith, the head pro at the Perth Golf Academy, former state women’s coach and winner of the Australian PGA’s Best Teacher Award in 2014. “I think she is still learning how to react to the external pressures off the course, but she is a thousand times better than where she was last year with these skills.”

Explaining the meltdown at the 2014 Aussie Open, Lee says, “I was not used to being in that position, so I guess I kind of psyched myself out. I think it was one of the big moments for me. I kind of learned that I need to just play my own game. Just because I wasn’t used to it, I was really nervous. I realised I didn’t need to be like that. I’m good enough to be in that position because I got myself there. I didn’t make any changes in my game after that. It was just understanding that I was good enough.”

Many believe the West Australia is goof enough this week.

Coach Smith says his charge will be in contention on her return to her home country after an outstanding rookie year on the LPGA Tour in America.

"She'll be thereabouts, but it's not going to be easy,'' said Smith, as Lee and her team practiced at The Grange today. "The course is playing really tough. It's bouncy everywhere, not necessarily fast, but hard.''

Lee, the two-time Australian amateur champion, took a prolonged break over Christmas after a rigorous 29-tournament schedule in 2015. The Open is her third start in 2016, having resumed last month with a tied-40th in the Coates Championship in Florida and tied-21st in the Bahamas LPGA Classic.

Renowned for her ball-striking, Smith said there was a constant process of working on her putting to take advantage of good iron shots. "She's probably one of the best putters in the world under pressure, but she's not one of the best putters in the world when she's not under pressure. She's not taking advantage of opportunities on the days when there's a score available. She can do it but she's holding status quo, then when she needs to she putts really well.''

Lee has her regular caddie Jeremy Young on the bag this week and has a more settled team around her after some early chopping and changing. Young took over as her caddie the week of the Kingsmill Championship in Virginia last year where Lee won her maiden LPGA title, and he has remained in the job ever since.

Lee, who also has all of her family with her this week, is the highest ranked Australian in the file at No. 18, having overtaken Karrie Webb as the top-ranked Aussie in July last year.

Webb says it was inevitable.

Lee has been teamed with caddie Jeremy Young since winning the Kingsmill title. PHOTO: Scott Halleran/Getty Images.

“She’s talented – I think you could tell that when she was 12 or 13,” Webb says. “I don’t think you need a golf expert to be able to tell she was going to be good. I think she’s very quietly confident as she’s gotten older. It’s good to see a young Australian with that confidence, because I think you really have to have that to compete at the highest level.”

At 41, Webb is old enough to be Lee’s mother. And she has nurtured Lee like a mother would.

“I feel like I’ve known her for quite a long time,” Webb says.

They first met in 2011, when Lee was playing in her first Australian Open. They played nine holes together on the Tuesday. Lee can’t tell you anything that happened in those two hours. She only knows that she was star-struck to be in Webb’s presence and feeling even more awkward than 14-year-olds normally feel.

“I was nervous,” Lee says. “I think I was really quiet and didn’t really say much. Just played and watched her. I was not so outgoing then. When she practises, she’s always concentrating to a certain extent, and I was doing my own thing, too. She talked to me. I was playing with older girls so they made it lighter.”

Lee will be one of the main tournament drawcards when the Women’s Open starts on Thursday. Television coverage will be on ABC from 3pm (Eastern Daylight Savings time).