GALLOWAY, N.J. - Some call it “The Zone.” It’s that feeling when a player’s just feeling it and seemingly have no conscience when it comes to the birdies and eagles they pour on the field.
Minjee Lee’s not sure what exactly to call it but she was certainly feeling it when she went bananas on the back nine at the Kingsmill Championship with a 5-under-par, five-hole stretch from holes 11-15 that allowed her to steal the lead and her first LPGA title two weeks ago.
“I was behind, and I just ‑‑ I don't know. I just kind of played,” Lee said. “Like I didn't really think about the lead. I was just ‑‑ I was just like playing. I wasn't thinking about it. And normally I'm like, oh, I might make the cut here. Like it was just a weird mentality that I had that I've never had before. So it was kind of ‑‑ I just kind of changed the way I thought. I was like, I'm out here because I'm good enough. So yeah, just kind of a different thought process, and I just played without much thought. I just played golf.”
As difficult as it is to describe, it’s just as tough to duplicate. When it’s hard to explain, it’s hard to find. And that’s the way “The Zone” can be.
“I think just like committing to each shot. And I like played all the shots that I wanted to play,” Lee said. “Like even if it was a little off, I was still okay. Yeah, just my putting was crazy. I don't know. I don't know what happened there.”
That’s Lee’s challenge now, rekindling a week she didn’t expect and can’t explain. Her goals as a rookie were relatively simple - learn, grow, and take in the experience. Winning wasn’t on the radar.
“I just kind of wanted to just play and just get into the swing of things,” Lee said.
Instead, she won and she’ll have a bullseye on her back the rest of the year as a winner on the LPGA Tour. She can no longer hide as the up-and-coming rookie but rather the 19-year-old prodigy with an LPGA title to her credit.
“I don't feel like much is different,” Lee said. “I just feel like I'm still doing the same things, and I'm still going to work hard. And so nothing is really different. It's just I got a title to my name now.”
Growing up Lee always remembers chasing world No. 1 Lydia Ko. Ko was a year younger than her, but she knew at every big junior or amateur event she showed up to, Ko was likely to set the pace.
“I mean Lydia was always like the person to beat, like we wanted to beat Lydia,” Lee said.
That’s still the case as Ko continues to set the standard as the most prodigious teenager the game has ever seen and Lee watched as an amateur Ko turn professional and win three times in her rookie season last year. Lee then turned professional herself in September and quietly watched Ko win twice to start 2015 and fellow rookies Sei Young Kim and Hyo Joo Kim posted wins, too. It didn’t provide confidence as much as it provided fuel. She knew what the world soon found out – that she belongs in the company of Ko and Hyo Joo Kim in the short conversation of golf’s brightest young stars.
“You kind of get pushed to play well,” she said. “Motivated, yeah, to play well because they're doing so well and they're rookies as well.”
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