Jim Gormley first met Andrea Lee when she was around 14 years old. When asked what he first noticed about the rising young player, Gormley said: “She’s just such a nice person.”
Lee oozes nice. She’s polite, often soft-spoken with the media and begins conversations with a smile.
But behind that pleasant personality is a fighter. And that fighting spirit was on full display this season as the former top-ranked amateur was forced back on the Epson Tour after her LPGA status tanked.
“It was to the point where I wanted to withdraw,” said Lee of her low point, which came in Hawaii last spring.
Lee, 23, opened with a 75 at the 2021 Lotte Championship birdie-fest, feeling deeply uncomfortable with a two-way miss.
“I’ve never quit,” she said, “but I kind of felt like I wanted to that week.”
She stayed the course and went out to the range 2 ½ hours before her tee time, searching for something, anything in old swing videos on her phone. Another 75 followed and the former Stanford star missed the cut in 10 of her first 13 starts in her second rookie season.
Rookies from the class of 2020 had a do-over rookie season due to the COVID-19 shortened season. It didn’t work out well for Lee, who finished 50th on the Race to the CME points list in 2020 and 107th in 2021.
“My head was in a complicated space,” said Lee, “and I’m a very simple player usually.”
Gormley began working as an assistant pro at Palos Verdes in 1996 and became the director of golf in 2001. He coordinated playing privileges for Lee at the SoCal club when she was in high school and watched her blossom into the best junior and amateur player in the world.
When Lee first reached out to Gormley last fall, she asked him to take a look at her putting. Then she asked him to do the same for her short game. Then her full swing. Gormley focused on teaching Lee the cause and effect of what happens with her game.
“It was really all in her setup,” said Gormley, who noted that her shoulders were too open at address throughout the bag.
Andrea Lee lines up a putt on the first green during the final round of the 77th U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club on June 05, 2022, in Southern Pines, North Carolina. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
While the 2022 Chevron Championship was underway in April, Lee was playing in her fourth event on the Epson Tour this season, which she won. From there she tied for 12th at the Lotte in Hawaii and then received a sponsor exemption into the inaugural LPGA event at Palos Verdes, where the membership cheered her and Gormley, who caddied on Sunday, to a share of fifth.
That got Lee into the Bank of Hope Match Play event where she advanced to the semifinal round. When Inbee Park withdrew from the U.S. Women’s Open, Lee took her place, finishing in a share of 15th to earn $151,731. She’s currently 39th in the CME Globe points race and can play in any event she wants for the rest of the season.
Next week she’ll team up with Bianca Pagdanganan at the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational.
“I do think I’m tougher,” said Lee, “a stronger and smarter player. I feel like I know my game more. I know what my tendencies are. Last year I was kind of lost.”
Stanford coach Anne Walker often pulls up Lee’s scorecards to follow along and notes that she almost always finishes with a birdie in the final stretch. Rarely does Lee finish with back-to-back mistakes.
“It speaks to her fight,” said Walker, “her mental ability to grind and just make something happen.”
Andrea Lee of the United States hits a drive off the second tee during the Bank of Hope LPGA Match-Play Hosted by Shadow Creek at Shadow Creek Golf Course on May 28, 2022, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Lee began playing golf at age eight and won 50 junior titles in four years. She was the 2014 AJGA Player of the Year and made the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open that same year at age 15. She won the McCormack Medal as the leading amateur player in 2019 and won a school-record nine times at Stanford.
Missing the weekend so many times and heading back to Q-Series was both frustrating and lonely for a player who’d only known what it was like to be at the top. The same attributes that took her to the heights of the game, said Walker – discipline, heart, fight – are the same traits that enabled her to claw out of it.
“I feel like it was rock bottom,” said Lee. “I’ve never been that low in my golf career. … I matured a lot; I grew a lot from that.
“I think it was a necessary step in my journey, to kind of fall back to go more forward.”
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