Minjee Lee started the day seven shots back at the Amundi Evian Championship and ended it with a record-tying victory, joining idol Karrie Webb and Patty Sheehan with the largest come-from-behind triumphs in LPGA major championship history.
Lee, 25, becomes the ninth consecutive first-time major winner on the LPGA and the 14th in the last 15 majors. Long considered one of the best LPGA players without a major, Lee finally shed that distinction with her sixth LPGA title. She joins Hannah Green, Jan Stephenson and Webb as Australian major champs.
“I never really like thought about it when I was playing,” said Lee of the starting deficit. “I just tried to make as many birdies as I could.
“I think I saw the leaderboard maybe once or twice … it’s just really amazing.”
Jeongeun Lee6 entered the final round with a five-stroke lead, thanks in part to a major championship record-tying 61 on Friday. That lead was erased entirely before Lee6 made the turn, however, and Lee made her way up the board with birdies on four of her last five holes.
While American rookie Yealimi Noh was at or near the top of the board throughout the final round, Lee6 showed plenty of moxie by battling back from an opening 39 with string of closing birdies. With Lee in the clubhouse at 18 under after a closing 64, Lee6 and Noh came to the reachable par-5 18th needing birdie to force a playoff.
Noh’s drive settled down into the right rough and she laid up, hoping to make birdie the old-fashioned way. While Noh’s birdie putt painfully slid right, Lee two-putted from 15 feet to match Lee, who was chilling with friends while eating a nectarine, by the practice putting green.
“Even if it was in the rough, just playing like a normal lie, I 100 percent would’ve gone for it,” said Noh, “but it was sitting down, and even after I hit my like punch-out it was like in a little divot sitting down.
“So could make birdie either way, but didn’t happen.”
Lee and Lee6, the 2019 U.S. Women’s Open winner, went back to the 18th to extend the drama in overtime. After both players found the fairway. Lee struck first with a 6-iron she won’t soon forget from 190 yards that settled 8 feet from the hole.
With the pressure on, Lee6 suffered a severe misfire, finding the pond that guards the 18thgreen with 5-iron. Lee wouldn’t go on to make her eagle putt, but it didn’t matter. She was, at last, a major champion.
The Perth native gave a nod to her longtime caddie, Jason Gilroyed, for talking her into the right club for that final swing.
“Actually, I said 5-iron,” said Lee, “but Gilly said 6, so thank you to Gilly. I hit 6-iron and it was really close.”
Two weeks ago, Lee’s younger brother Min Woo won the Scottish Open to qualify for his first major championship, the British Open at Royal St. George’s. There’s much to celebrate.
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