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LOS ANGELES — Karrie Webb is Australia’s preeminent LPGA player, with 41 career tour victories and seven majors in 23 seasons. And she has become a mentor for Minjee Lee, the 22-year-old Perth native who, in four-plus seasons, has five tournament victories.
No. 5 came Sunday at Wilshire Country Club, a four-shot victory in the second Hugel-Air Premia L.A. Open that will vault Lee into the No. 2 spot in the world rankings this week.
So, what would Karrie think? Turns out she already let Minjee know, even before Sunday’s winner got to the interview room.
“Just in our conversations over the years, she’s been really supportive of everything I’ve done,” Lee said. “Even today I got a message: ‘Way to stay patient out there, and well done.’
“Things like that show how she cares. I think (her) just being there means a lot.”
Lee made quick work of whatever drama existed Sunday afternoon. She was five shots up through six holes, largely because Nanna Koerstz Madsen of Denmark, a shot behind coming into the day, dropped out of sight on the front nine with four bogeys on her first seven holes. (Madsen finished 5-over for the day and 13th for the week).
But with the potential of a boat race to the finish, up stepped South Korea’s Sei Young Kim to make things interesting. Kim, playing three groups ahead of Lee, went birdie-birdie-birdie on 13, 14 and 15, half of her six birdies on the day. When Lee slid her own birdie putt just wide right on 14, suddenly what had been a five-shot lead was down to two.
But Kim ran out of birdies, and when she missed a birdie putt on 17 and then dumped her tee shot on the par-3 18th on the lip of a bunker, a prelude to a bogey, time – and drama – had run out as well.
Lee only had to not blow it, and she didn’t, knocking in a 15-foot birdie putt on 18 to put the ribbon on a three-under round of 69 and a four-shot triumph.
One moral of this story: A triple-bogey along the way won’t kill you. (Multiple triple-bogeys will, and we speak from experience, but that’s another digression for another time.)
Lee took a 7 on the par-3 third hole Saturday, and still wound up with a 3-under 68 and the third-round lead by a shot, the platform for Sunday’s triumph.
“I just pretty much forgot about it, straightaway,” she said. “The next shot (the tee shot on 4) was pretty daunting, so I pretty much got it out of my mind and tried to concentrate on the next shot, and that’s pretty much what I did for the whole round after that hole.
“I think I’m good at concentrating on the next shot that I have to play. That’s something that I’ve always done pretty well, and it’s really helped me if I make a mistake or have a bad hole. I’m not sure if that’s what comes natural to an athlete or a golfer, but it’s been pretty good to me.”
An observation here: Wiping away the past and concentrating on the present may not be natural to an athlete or a golfer, but it should be.
This was Lee’s fourth top-five finish in nine events this year. And it continued a trend in the two years of this tournament; she finished 5-under and tied for seventh at Wilshire last year.
“This is definitely a second-shot golf course,” she said. “I feel like my iron play is pretty solid, and I can usually get pretty accurate with them, and that really suits me and my game. If my putter is (working) I have a good chance.”
Sunday she hit 16 of 18 greens in regulation and needed 31 putts, her highest total of the week. She had seven birdies to counteract her triple bogey Saturday and take a one-shot lead into the final day, and had four birdies to counterbalance a lone bogey Sunday, when she hit her tee shot on the par-4 11th into the sand and then couldn’t get it out of the bunker on her first try.
“Maybe I lost a little bit of concentration there,” she said. “But I tried to get it back after that. I knew I had a tough five holes coming in.”
She was up to the task. And now she’ll be No. 2 in the rankings, jumping past Nelly Korda and Eun-Hee Ji and trailing only Jin Young Ko. It’s heady stuff for a 22-year-old.
“I mean, it’s pretty cool – it’s going to be my PB,” she said, meaning personal best. “Any number in the top five, you can jump to the No. 1 spot with a couple of good finishes.
“Being that close is in the back of my mind, but I’m not gonna dwell too much on it.”
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