In honor of Aussie Minjee Lee gritting out a tough win this weekend at the KMPG Women’s PGA Championship – joining fellow Australian women Jan Stephenson and Karrie Webb as a three-time major winner – I would like to revisit my story (for a former outlet) of her record-setting 2012 USGA U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship win at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City:
Given the number of girls in the ranks of girls’ and women’s golf who are either Asian-born or of Asian ancestry, it was almost inevitable that this would happen – Lee facing Lee for the USGA’s U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship. It is a tribute to the truly international flavor of girls’ and women’s golf, however, that the two young ladies who faced off over 36 holes of match play golf today at Lake Merced Golf Club, though sharing Korean ancestry, hail from countries on different continents, in different hemispheres, on opposite sides of the largest body of water on the planet, and are from cities that are 9300 miles apart.
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| Minjee Lee, 16, of Perth, Australia, raises the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy after winning the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Lake Merced Golf Club. She is the first Australian to take the title. (Photo Credit: J. Mummert – USGA) |
Alison Lee, 17, is a Southern California girl from Valencia, CA, in the Santa Clarita Valley; Minjee Lee is a 16-year-old Aussie from Perth, Western Australia. Despite the geographical distance between their home cities, on the golf course at the final of the Girls’ Junior Championship the competition between the two was as close as close can be.
Starting the morning round under a blue sky, rather than the usual marine-layer overcast that had greeted early rounds all week, Alison took a 1-up lead right out of the gate with a birdie 3 at the opening hole. They halved the next two holes, then Minjee squared it up with a par to Alison’s bogey at the fourth. Another string of three halved holes followed before Minjee went one up at the par-3 eighth hole.
Using a forward tee box, #8 was playing about 133 yards to a flag tucked back right and guarded by a bunker. Both girls went for the flag and were in good position in the back lobe of the green where the hole was cut, but Minjee was closer, and made her birdie putt to go 1-up.
Halving #9 with pars, they made the turn with Minjee 1-up, and stayed that way with a halved hole at #10. The young Aussie won another hole at #11, with a birdie to Alison’s bogey, then another string of three halved holes came and went before the next change in score, this time in Alison’s favor, when she parred the long par-3 fifteenth as Alison bogeyed. Halving the last three holes, they went to the lunch break with Minjee one up over Alison.
While the players, officials, and spectators broke for lunch, the grounds crew went out to make a few changes to the course setup for the afternoon round. No hole locations were changed, but the tee markers were moved to different locations on holes 2, 3, 8, and 12.
The second round opened with another string of halved holes, but the Alison made a clutch 25-foot putt on the 137-yard par-3 third to keep from going to 2-down.
Alison made up ground on her opponent at the par-4 fifth hole, making a clean approach from the right fringe and two-putting for par, while Minjee pulled her approach into a left-hand bunker, got out cleanly but missed the par putt
The match remained all square through the next two holes, then at #8, the par-3 where Minjee had made her move to go up in the match in the morning round, Alison made a move. Stretched to 168 yards for the day’s second 18 by the move to a different tee box, the hole played the reverse of the morning round – Alison birdied, Minjee made par, and now Alison was 1-up on the round
At the long par-5 ninth hole Alison got to the front fringe in two, while Minjee’s second shot, a low stinger, bounded and ran across the green and into the rough just off the back side. Alison’s chip to the back left flag ran 20 feet past, but she made the putt for her second birdie in a row, while Minjee chipped on and two-putted for par. Alison was now two up.
The first two holes of the final nine were halved in par, then Alison went to 3-up when Minjee’s tee shot at the 168-yard twelfth hole hit short and rolled down the hill below the green. The Aussie chipped on to about eight feet below the hole, then two-putted for a bogey four, while Alison made a clean two-putt for a par.
With a 3-up lead in hand Alison was feeling good as the match came to the 66th hole, the par-4 thirteenth. Both girls striped their drives to the bottom of the drop-off fronting the green – but here is where the match started to slip away from Alison.
After a good drive to the low approach area below the green, Alison chunked a 50° wedge into the right greenside bunker. She splashed out cleanly, but missed the fairly simple 4-foot downhill par putt she was left with. Minjee flew her approach shot to the green for a 20-foot uphill birdie putt. She left it short, but rolled in the par putt– and on the heels of Alison’s mini-meltdown, picked up a shot and was only two down.
Alison’s errors compounded at the par-4 fourteenth hole when she pushed her drive into a right-hand fairway bunker and pulled a fairway wood seeking to get out of the bunker and onto the green. She topped the ball, which ricocheted off of the low shoulder in front of the bunker, killing its momentum so that it rolled out no more than forty yards down the fairway. Her medium-iron approach ran well past the hole, and with two putts, she put up a five to Minjee’s four, and gave back a hole – she was now two up with four to play.
With two bad holes behind her, Alison was feeling the pressure, and must have sensed the match starting to slip away from her. She pulled her tee shot at the long par-3 fifteenth into one of the deep bunkers left of the green, then rocketed her sand shot 20 feet past the hole, two-putted for a bogey against Minjee’s routine on-in-one, two-putt par, and squared the match.
At the par-4 sixteenth, Alison’s drove about 220 yards to the right-center on the fairway, with Minjee in equally good position just a few yards behind. Flying her approach to a spot 25 feet above the front-left hole location, Alison missed a curling downhill putt for birdie, slid the par putt past by a hair and dunked her third putt for bogey. Minjee’s approach had left her with a more straightforward uphill 5-footer, and she two putted for an easy par to go 1-up, taking the lead in the match for the first time since the 21st hole.
The pair halved seventeen in a heartbreaker. Alison got on in two from the right side of the fairway, but her 8-foot downhill birdie putt hung on the lip of the hole, but wouldn’t drop – she made par. Minjee had left her approach from the right rough in the rough below and right of the front entrance to the green. With a little popped-up flop shot, she had four feet for par – made it, and went one up with one to play – dormie.
On the dramatic par-5 closing hole, both girls made good drives, then pulled their second shots into similarly tough situations on the left side of the fairway, below a pine tree that blocked the approach to the green. Alison ran a well-judged bump-and-run shot up to a position on the green few feet below the front-left flag; Minjee was in the rough and totally blocked by the tree from a direct line to the flag – she ran her approach low and right to a position on the apron below the green. She flopped it onto the green from there, leaving herself 4 feet for par.
From her spot on the collar of the green, Alison had one chance to ensure an extension of the match – make a 6-foot birdie putt. It wasn’t to be, however – the putt slid by the hole by a narrow margin, and after Minjee made her par putt, she was the victor at +1.
The win at Lake Merced makes Minjee Lee the first Australian girl to get her name on the Glenna Collett Vare Trophy; Alison Lee, who has now played in her last (of six) Girl’s Junior, will never see her name there. The Valley Girl from Valencia has one more year of high school golf ahead of her, then she will join the ever-strong UCLA women’s golf squad, where she will undoubtedly make a fine addition to the team.
