Sean Crocker was travelling so poorly on Friday that he was dubbed ‘Barry’ by the small posse of press following his outward nine of 5-over 40. Crocker would ultimately scrap his way to 74 and scrape in just under the cut.
By midday on Saturday, after teeing off in the sixth group out at 06:57, Crocker had smoked eight birdies and notched 65 which rocketed the American to 9-under and second place in the 2023 Australian Open.
Looking at the leaderboard were the followers of Australian golf’s newest cult hero. And to a person they thought: anything you can do, Min Woo can do better.
We’re on the first tee at The Australian among a thick gallery of fans straining to see the 24-year-old phenom from the West, Min Woo Lee. There are people dressed in homage to the man.
Five bearded men with a beer in each fist are in white hats with ‘Cook’ written on them. Three men could actually be chefs, so realistic are their outfits. There are kids with signs. There are men with home-made T-shirts. There are men in African safari pith helmets, for no apparent reason.
Lee is dressed all in black - hat, pants, turtle neck T-shirt. Much of him is devoted to advertising. He’s like an F1 car. There’s ‘Kow Steaks’ on his bag and ‘Amazing Cre’ on his pants. And his collar. And his sleeve. It's clothes or golf clubs, possibly, from Korea. Google it, if you're of a mind.
And so our man tees off and smashes driver down the middle of the mighty par-4 first, a tremendous blow of 300 metres if it’s an inch. A gap wedge from there is pure, drawing, and sticks to two feet.
And the leader of the Australian Open has made a statement to his playing partners Connor Syme from Scotland and Patrick Rodgers from the United States: this is my home. These are my people. I am the head chef here.
Or maybe he just hit a great golf shot. He doesn’t appear a man to over-complicate things with telepathic personal animus. Few would be.
On the second green we strain to see over the top of white hats that poke like smoke stacks or those tall viewing things with little mirrors that people used to see Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin back in the day.
On three Lee hits one fat from the rough into the drink. A 65m wedge then goes 85m. Two putts, a double, we roll on...
Lee’s playing partner Symes is a thickset type from Scotland with shades of Panthers backrower Liam Martin about him. Rodgers, meanwhile, is straight from the PGA Tour template: six-foot three, lean, high pants, Gomer Pyle with a beard.
On the par-5 fifth Lee smokes – no other word for it – a three-iron from the left rough. It travels the better part of 240 metres, a stupendous blow, and rests in the neck of the green.
Lee fans of a certain again – let’s call them ’20-somethings’ – exclaim ‘Kow!’ and 'Yow!' and make other high-pitched exclamations like sound effects in Star Wars.
“Kooow!” It appears to be a thing, part of the movement.
Know this: golf is living large in Sydney Town.
It’s an understandable reaction to watching Lee hit the golf ball. From a small enough frame he extracts serious torque. He winds up and lets rip, shooting out the gates like an Audi A8 at Bathurst.
After Lee executes a pure and delicate chip which begets a one-putt birdie, there is appreciative applause from The Australian’s greens staff who are taking a break from being praised as curators of a course as pure and manicured as Augusta National. That, for a greenie, probably doesn’t get old.
The galleries are thick with Lee fans. They line the sixth, they line the seventh, they line the eighth. They wander from tee to green like rivulets before forming eddies around the greens.
The makeup of the fans is diverse but if there was a typical one it would it 20-something Aussie Man. And he likes what he sees. Lee is their guy. He's one of them. They can’t understand his preternatural skills - again, few could. But they get him on Instagram, on Tik Tok, on … that's all I've got. So just them.
Regardless, as Lee belts the ball long and straight between these rows of followers, they howl at the moon and make Star Wars sound-effects, and riff on variations of ‘Let him cook’, the handle Lee invented and made his own.
Word comes through from other holes: Lucas Herbert’s on the charge. Rikuya Hoshino of Japan is continuing his hot, if borderline anonymous, fortnight Down Under. Rodgers and Syme aren’t copping to their roles as the Washington Generals to Lee’s Harlem Globetrotter. Threats abound to our head chef.
Yet it remains Lee's cooking show here. Onwards he rolls and onwards his peeps go with him. They follow and support the man, and like him as a previous generation liked Adam and Shark and Thommo before them. Billy Dunk? Not so much. But Lee is the man of the hour, moment, generation.
He tees off on seven filmed by so many phones it’s a wonder more don’t go off. He booms driver 300 metres, a searing, power-fading, long bit of kit that splits the atom and leaves him 120m out. People gasp.
His drive on eight is the same. His drive on nine is the same. His approach shots aren’t dialled in as he’d like, and ‘simple’ pars result.
We take off to the media tent to type us this gibber while Lee scratches his way to one-under score of 70 and a share of the lead (with Hoshino) in the Australian Open. He'll be in the last group tomorrow. And good luck getting a steak in a city pub tomorrow, for so will all the chefs in Sydney.
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