Minjee Lee is an Australian professional golfer from Perth whose exploits on the golf court have won her enormous accolades over the years. Starting from when she was an amateur golfer, Lee showed she had class and great talent and has steadily risen to superstar status.
Minjee Lee was ranked the number one amateur golfer in 2014 February and kept that spot till she turned professional that September.
Minjee Lee’s Biography And Amateur Career
Minjee Lee was born in Perth, the largest and capital city of Western Australia on the 27th of May 1996.
Minjee began playing golf at a young age. At age 10, she was already practicing for 8 hours daily and caught the attention of a man she called Ritchie Smith who has been her coach since then. While attending the Methodist Ladies’ College in Perth, Australia, she entered the 2010 Western Australia Amateur Open.
Her victory at the competition made her the youngest winner of the title as she was just a year 9 student at the time. She switched to the private Catholic secondary college, Corpus Christi College, in 2012 to be closer to her sports and left there the following year.
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Lee emerged as the winner of the 2012 United States Girls’ Junior Championship, a competition for amateur U-18 female golfers. She was part of the Golf Australia National Squad in 2013. That same year, the elegant golfer bagged the Australian Women’s Amateur, a title she retained the next year (2014).
The Australian Ladies Professional Golf Tour (ALPG) features several tournaments yearly. In 2014, Minjee Lee participated in and won the Oates Victorian Open which took place on 20th– 23rd February. This achievement earned her the number-one spot in amateur golfing. In her 5-year spell as an amateur, Lee also won the Handa Junior Masters, Tasmanian Stroke Play Championship, Srixon International Junior Classic, Singapore Ladies Amateur (all in 2011); the Dunes Medal, and Rene Erichsen Salver (both in 2013) amongst others.
Minjee Lee’s Professional Career
In 2014 September, the Australian golfer led a national team to the biennial amateur golf women’s championship and brought home the Espirito Santo Trophy. This marked the beginning of Lee’s professional golf career.
Lee participated in the May 18th, 2015 Kingsmill Championship under the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour and emerged as the winner. On 16th April, she won another LPGA tournament, the Lotte Championship. The LPGA women’s tournament held on Hainan Island in China, the Blue Bay, was another win for the golfer in 2016.
In 2018, Lee played against Korean-born golfer, Lydia Ko for the Mediheal Championship (LGPA) but lost the title. However, she won the Volvik Championship (LGPA) some weeks later on May 27 which was coincidentally her 22nd birthday. Earlier in the year, on 4th February, Lee won the Oates Victorian Open again, this time as a professional, with a 5-stroke margin against Karis Davidson.
The 2018 season ended well for the golfer as she emerged 2nd with a 69.747 average score. The Thai professional golfer, Ariya Jutanugarn had the highest score average and was also number one financially. Minjee Lee won the Hugel-Air Premia LA Open on 28 April 2019. This would be her fifth LPGA Tour victory. One month later, she rose to number two in the Women’s World Golf Rankings.
On The International Scene
In the Games of the XXXI Olympiad (the 2016 Summer Olympics), held in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, the Australians were represented by Minjee Lee in the women’s golf contest. This tournament was the first for women golfers at the Olympic Games since 1900. She finished at a rank of 7 in the competition.
Lee has made some team appearances for Australia such as the UL International Crown, in 2014 as an amateur, and in 2016 & 2018 as a professional.
The People Who Make Up Lee’s Family
Soonam Lee, a spray painter, is Minjee’s father and he is married to Clara Lee, her mother. Her mother has been a big source of encouragement from her childhood and has followed her all the way. Clara is said to be in attendance at almost all of Minjee’s Championship games.
Minjee Lee has a younger brother named Min Woo Lee. Woo is also a golfer and in 2016, he won the United States Junior Amateur Golf Championship. Recall that Minjee won the U.S. Girls Junior Championship in 2012. These individual wins for the siblings made them the first United States Golf Association’s Junior Championships brother/sister pair winners.
Clara Lee has always known that her daughter was bound for the zenith in the golf world NAD now, she has an additional blessing in Min Woo.
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Minjee Lee’s Earnings And Net Worth
Minjee Lee has performed excellently since her cross-over into professional golfing in September 2014. Not only has she won lots of titles, but she has also earned nicely. At the close of the 2018 year, she came 2nd in the money list ranking following Ariya Jutanugarn (1st). Her 2018 earnings were a whopping $1,551,032 from 27 played events.
Her total earnings at the moment is $13,864,143 while her net worth is estimated at around $5 million.
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