Minjee Lee Sets Her Sights On U.S. Women's Open Title with 3-Shot Lead at Pine Needles
SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. – Minjee Lee is poised to put another Australian stamp on U.S. Women’s Open championship golf at Pine Needles.
Lee fired a 4-under-par 67 Saturday, keyed by a stretch of four consecutive birdies in the middle of her round, as she attempts to match fellow Aussie hero and Hall of Famer Karrie Webb’s USGA national championship victory here in the North Carolina Sandhills in 2001.
Lee won her first major last year at the Evian Championship. And now she is on a record-setting pace this week at the 77th U.S. Women’s Open after carding rounds of 67, 66 and 67.
Lee will need to shoot even-par 71 or better to break the all-time U.S. Women’s Open scoring record of 272, last accomplished by In Gee Chun in 2015. Lee is also threatening the record for most strokes under par, which is 16-under by Juli Inkster at Old Waverly Golf Club in 1999.
“I haven’t thought about it (the record) but if I play good then I guess it’s going to come with it, right?” Lee said. “Hopefully I can play well.”
Lee said she received an encouraging text from Webb on Friday.
“She said ‘Keep it going, let’s go Aussie,”’ Lee said.
There was a four-shot swing on the 11th and 12th holes that turned the day in Lee’s favor after she had trailed by two shots five holes in.
Lee sank a birdie putt on the third hardest hole of the day to take the lead for the first time over Mina Harigae in the third round and added another 12-footer birdie putt on the next hole for her string of birdies.
“I really didn’t think about how Mina was playing,” Lee said of the four-shot swing in the same group. “I was trying to make as many birdies as I could and post a good score. I was in my zone.
“No, I’ve never been in this position – it’s the U.S. Women’s Open,” added Lee. “I’m just going to stick to what I know. I’ve been in pressure situations like this before and I will draw from those other events.”
It was a picture-perfect day for scoring with temperatures in the mid-80s and light wind, but most players had trouble navigating the tough Donald Ross-designed greens. Not Lee, who needed just 27 putts to take a confident lead into the final round Sunday. She is seventh this week in putting and her four straight birdies all came from within 12 feet.
Only two players are within six shots of Lee, including Harigae at 10-under and Bronte Law, who is playing in her fourth U.S. Women’s Open. Law, from England, closed with a back-nine 32 for a 68 and is alone in third at 7-under. She missed an 8-foot birdie attempt on the 18th hole that just slid right.
“That turned a lot for a putt that was that downhill but I played solid on both nines and took advantage of a lot of my good shots on the back nine,” Law said. “It comes down to rolling putts in at the end. I want to build off of what happened today because I had a lot of good shots and hit a lot of good putts. There is no reason I can’t go out and do that Sunday.”
Lee said she executed a fitness regime this offseason that helped her get additional distance off the tee. She is averaging 272 yards this week, while Harigae, her playing partner Saturday and in Sunday’s final round, was is at 237.
“It has been helpful for me,” Lee said of her drives, which at times gave her a three- or four-club advantage over Harigae. “I went hard at it in the gym.”
The 32-year-old Harigae is just three shots behind Lee, but would be a massive long shot to pull off the win Sunday. It’s her 12th U.S. Women’s Open and her 256th career start but she has never won on the LPGA Tour. In fact, she has just 19 career top 10s.
She has hit 40 of 42 fairways, but has rarely been under this type of microscope, having made just six cuts in 47 career majors.
“I was happy with the way I was able to hang in there,” she said. “I have learned that I’m able to embrace the moment and I can control my emotions a lot better when there is high tension and things don’t go my way.”
Amateur Ingrid Lindblad, a rising senior at Louisiana State, got it to 9-under, but wasn’t able to sustain her stellar play and closed with her second straight even-par 71 and is in a logjam of five others at 6-under.
Lindblad couldn’t have gotten off to a better start with birdies on three of her first four holes to jump into a three-way tie for the lead at 9-under.
Lindblad sank a short birdie putt on the opening hole and then on the par-3 third hole got within two feet. Lindblad followed that up with a 122-yard approach shot to within 8-feet for another birdie to tie for the lead at 9-under.
Lindblad has been on a torrid pace so far in the first half of 2022. As a junior this spring at LSU, she won the first four of five tournaments and then won the SEC individual crown by sinking a 38-foot putt for eagle on the final hole. She was also the runner-up at the 2022 Augusta National Women’s Amateur.
Lindblad gave a shot back at the fifth hole when she missed the green right on the par-3 and her chip from a swale came up 35 feet short of the hole and then dropped another shot at the 11th and couldn’t get anything going on the back nine.
However, at 207 she is well within reach of the lowest 72-hole score by an amateur in the 77-year history of this event. Hye-Jin Choi, who finished second in 2017 at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, holds the record at 279.
Lydia Ko, with 15 career wins, including two majors, started the day at 1-under and eight shots off the lead, but carded a 5-under 66 – the low round of the day – to move within final-round contention at 6-under.
Meanwhile, former No. 1 in the world and 2020 Olympic golf medalist Nelly Korda, sidelined since March after having surgery to remove a blood clot in her left arm got within four shots of the lead at one point on the back nine but three-putted the 16th and followed that up by bogeyed the hardest hole on the course and the 18th to fall back to 4-under.
However, Lee is the scoring average leader on the LPGA Tour this year at 68.89 and looks to be in command.