Lee got off to a strong start at the Blue Bay LPGA event in China after posting a course record-tying 7-under 65.
Past champion Minjee Lee got off to a strong start at the Blue Bay LPGA event in China after posting a smooth 7-under 65, which ties the course record. The Aussie holds a one-stroke advantage over American Sarah Schmelzel and Chinese players Miranda Wang and Ruixin Liu. This marks the first edition of the Blue Bay event since 2018.
“I just took advantage of the really calm conditions this morning,” said Lee, “and I think with the a little bit the rain it actually stopped it even more, the wind.”
While Lee won twice in 2023, this marks the first time she has led or co-led after the first round since the 2022 Chevron Championship. Earlier this season, it was announced that Lee had joined her brother Min Woo on the Callaway staff. Previously a Srixon player, one of the best ball-strikers on the LPGA had some work to do to get things in order. This is her second start this season. She opened with a T-29 last week in Singapore.
“I actually touched on everything this offseason,” said Lee, “especially changing my equipment to Callaway. Everything has been a little bit of a process getting used to, but I think it’s going to take me a couple events just to knock the rust off and break those clubs in.”
Lee also holds the 36-hole and 72-hole scoring records at Blue Bay.
Schmelzel led after the first round of last week’s HSBC Women’s World Championship and ultimately tied for eighth.
Lydia Ko, who needs one more point to enter the LPGA Hall of Fame and a win would get her there, opened with a 68 at Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Course.
“There are some greens with some pin positions that like is actually really hard to stay on the same tier,” said Ko. “I think how the rules officials are going to set up the golf course and where they put the pins are going to dictate the scores a lot.”
World No. 1 Lilia Vu withdrew from the final round in Singapore on Sunday with an illness. She rested on Monday and shot 72 in the opening round.
“I feel like there was a big crowd out here,” said Vu. “I was playing with Ruoning (Yin), so obviously it’s her crowd. There was a lot of little kids out there following her, so it was really cool to see the turnout here.”
Lee is now the third player from Australia to reach double-digits LPGA victories.
Minjee Lee recorded her 10th career victory at the BMW Ladies Championship in South Korea in a playoff over Alison Lee. It was a rematch of the 2012 U.S. Girls’ Junior final, which Minjee happened to win as well.
“I was like, this kind of feels familiar,” said the 27-year-old Aussie.
Minjee became the fifth player this season to win multiple titles when she drained a 6-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole. The American Alison Lee, a former top-ranked amateur, is still waiting on her maiden LPGA victory. Minjee won Cincinnati’s Kroger Queen City Championship in September.
“Out of all the places, Korea was always at the top of my list because my parents are Korean and I have a heritage to Korea,” said Minjee. “This one is special, and especially having all of my family and extended family and friends coming out to cheer for me today, it was really cool to see them on the sidelines when I was walking down. It was great that I was able to win today.”
Minjee earned $330,000 for her victory, giving her $1,552,475 for the season. It’s her second victory in her last three starts. She is now the third player from Australia to reach double digits in tour victories, joining Jan Stephenson (16) and Karrie Webb (41).
A two-time major winner who has now won in each of her last three LPGA seasons, Minjee closed with a 4-under 68 at Seowon Hills at Seowon Valley Country Club to finish at 16 under while Alison, a former UCLA standout, birdied her last two holes in regulation to shoot 67.
“I feel like I’m hitting it so well and I had so many putts this week lip out,” said Alison, “and I can’t stop thinking about all those small mistakes that I potentially made.”
Lydia Ko, playing on a sponsor invite, closed with a third consecutive 69 to finish third, two strokes back. The season has been largely a struggle for Ko, who hadn’t previously cracked the top 10 since February in Thailand.
“I feel like I’ve been moving in the right direction and felt like I was moving in the right direction, but the results weren’t really a good reflection of that,” said Ko, who won the BMW last year. “So at least this week is a confirmation to say, hey, it’s not dead yet.”
American Angel Yin, who won her first LPGA title last week in Shanghai, closed with a 67 to finish fourth.
South Africa’s Ashleigh Buhai came into the final round tied with Minjee at 12 under but dropped to a share of 13th after a final-round 74. Buhai did win $10,000 in unofficial money from the tournament for setting a BMW scoring record of 10-under 62 in the first round.
Lee is looking for her second win in three starts.
After Saturday’s third round, Ashleigh Buhai and Minjee Lee are tied for the 54-hole lead at 12 under at the LPGA’s BMW Ladies Championship at Seowon Hills at Seowon Valley Country Club in Korea.
Buhai, who shot rounds of 62-73 over the first two days, signed for a bogey-free 3-under 69 on Saturday. The 20th-ranked player in the Rolex Rankings, who has missed the cut in four of her last five starts, is looking for her second win of the year (ShopRite LPGA Classic).
Lee mixed three birdies with two bogeys in round three, good enough for a 1-under effort. The Aussie, who is seventh in the world, won the Kroger Queen City Championship last month.
Lydia Ko and Alison Lee are tied for third at 11 under, one back. Lauren Coughlin and Céline Boutier are two back at 10 under. Atthaya Thitikul and Jiyai Shin sit T-7, three back. And rounding the top 10 are Hannah Green and Angel Yin at T-9, four back.
Crazy winds were the story of the second round in Korea.
Scoring conditions were completely different Friday at Seowon Hills at Seowon Valley Country Club.
Ashleigh Buhai, the first-round leader, was 11 shots worse in the second round than on her opening day. She only shot 1 over.
Swirling winds were the story of the second round at the LPGA’s BMW Ladies Championship in Korea, but it’s Minjee Lee who fired a 3-under 69 to move into the lead heading to the weekend. After a day where there were more 66s than scores over par, the script flipped Friday.
“It was really hard conditions out there,” Lee said. “A lot of wind swirling around the valley. So sometimes we had really strong gusts, and I had to back off. But overall I had a really good finish.”
Lee sits at 11 under, two shots in front of American Alison Lee, who shot even-par 72 after an opening 9-under performance. Buhai is also T-2 at 9 under.
“It was definitely really frustrating,” Alison said of her even-par round, “but tried to stay patient. I definitely feel like I missed a few really good birdie opportunities out there. Like I feel like I could have played so much better than even.”
Lydia Ko, the event’s defending champion, sits T-4 at 8 under.
LPGA begins its four-week Asian swing in China for the first time since 2019.
The LPGA returns to China this week for the first time since 2019 for the third edition of the Buick LPGA Shanghai. Danielle Kang, winner of the event in 2018 and 2019, returns to Qizhong Garden Golf Club to try for a Shanghai trifecta.
The event had been canceled the past three seasons due to ongoing COVID-19-related restrictions.
The field in Shanghai consists of 62 LPGA players, 15 players from the China Golf Association and four sponsor invites competing for a $2.1 million purse in the 72-hole, no-cut event. Four players inside the top 10 of the Rolex Rankings are in the field.
Some on the LPGA have raised concerns in the past about the tour continuing to compete in China. Amy Olson told Golfweek two years ago that she didn’t feel it was safe there for players. Olson said too many have turned a blind eye to the mass imprisonment and persecution of the Uyghurs by the Chinese government in the Xinjiang province. What’s more, Olson continued, Chinese officials weren’t transparent with what was happening in their hospitals and within their borders during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As an organization that stands up for women’s rights and has fought day in and day out for those rights,’’ said Olson, who is currently on maternity leave, “what China has done flies directly in the face of everything we stand for.”
Like Olson, Angela Stanford has made a personal commitment not to compete in China or Saudi Arabia due to human rights concerns.
Shanghai is the first of four events on the LPGA’s Asia swing, with the tour heading to South Korea next for the BMW Ladies Championship, followed by a return to Malaysia for the Maybank Championship and a final stop in Japan for the Toto Japan Classic.
Lee has now won six of the last eight tournaments in which she held the 54-hole lead.
It was a weekend of rallies at the 2023 LPGA Kroger Queen City Championship, which also produced a new world No. 1.
Minjee Lee was six shots back of the lead after 36 holes but through 10 holes Sunday during the final round, she held a five-shot lead. Ballgame, right?
As ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso likes to say: Not so fast, my friends, because that’s just when Charley Hull turned on the jets and put on a rally of her own at Kenwood Country Club in Cincinnati.
Hull birdied the par-3 11th and then overcame a bogey on the next hole to make three straight birdies on Nos. 14, 15 and 16 to forge a tie atop the leaderboard at 16 under.
Lee and Hull were still tied on the 18th tee box and they each proceeded to hit driver into the same fairway bunker, their balls ending up with 10 feet of each.
From there, Hull blasted out and got her ball to the front fringe, giving herself a 54-foot birdie putt to win. She missed just left and then watched as Lee, whose third shot was a chip to about eight feet, need to make her putt for par, which she did for a final-round 71. Hull then made her one-footer for a par of her own for a final-round 69 and the two headed back to the 18th tee box for a playoff, the ninth of the LPGA season.
Lee’s second shot on the first playoff hole found the green, but Hull’s took a huge bounce and came to rest near the grandstands behind the green. Her putt from off the green rolled and rolled and rolled and nearly went in, coming to a rest one rotation short of the cup.
Lee then pulled her 20-footer for birdie left and it was back to the 18th tee box for a second playoff hole. That’s where Lee landed her second shot short of the green but it bounded on and rolled to about three feet.
“You have to land it like 25 yards short of the green because I was also coming out of the rough,” she said after he round. “So I just hit pitching wedge and hit it three quarter and it was really… you can’t really predict how far it’s going to run so it was just a guesstimate.”
She then poured in the birdie putt to get the win.
Lee secured her first victory of the season and the ninth in her LPGA career. She now has seven top-20 finishes in her last nine outings. More impressively, Lee has now won six of the last eight tournaments in which she led after three rounds.
“I guess I just have a lot of grit,” she said when asked about her ability to close. “Coming down the stretch I never give up, and I like to think that I’m always putting pressure on my opponents and not giving it up too easily. So I think I just have great fight in me and really great resilience.”
The LPGA breaks for the Solheim Cup in two weeks. There are two events back-to-back after that, but the Aussie says she has other plans.
“I’m actually looking forward to a couple weeks off and some down time,” she said. “Going to go back to Perth during Arkansas and Dallas, so hopefully I can enjoy this one back home with my friends and family.”
Hull fell just short of her third LPGA win.
New No. 1 in Rolex Rankings
Ruoning Yin, who finished solo third at 14 under, couldn’t quite catch the leaders but by virtue of a top-4 finish, will ascend to the No. 1 spot when the Rolex Rankings are updated on Monday.
She will unseat Lilia Vu, who climbed to No. 1 a month ago after winning the 2023 AIG Women’s Open. Yin, No. 2 in the rankings heading into the week, was outside the top 400 this time a year ago.
Defending champ earns solo fourth
Ally Ewing, who won the inaugural Kroger Queen City Championship in 2022, shot a 66 and finished solo fourth.
Mel Reid also shot a final-round 66 to earn a tie for fifth, posting her best finish of the season and first top-10. She came into the Kroger having missed the cut in four of her last five outings.
Another Sunday 66 was recorded by Brooke Henderson, who was celebrating her 26th birthday. She tied for 23rd.
Rose Zhang tapped in for par for a 72 on Sunday, a day after posting a 73. She finished tied for 31st.
A total of 80 golfers made the cut and played the weekend.
Celine Boutier is the 15th-ranked player in the world, has won three times on the LPGA, has played in two Solheim Cups and represented France at the Olympics. But if she wins Sunday, she’ll elevate her career to the next level.
Boutier holds a three-shot lead after 54 holes of the 2023 Amundi Evian Championship at Evian Resort Golf Club in Evian-les-Bains, France.
The 29-year-old followed up her first two rounds (66-69) with a 4-under 67 on Saturday to solidify her spot atop the leaderboard at 11 under.
The Frenchwoman will have to hold off a slew of big-name players on Sunday if she wants to hoist her first major championship trophy on home soil.
The low round of the day belonged to Nelly Korda, who shot a bogey-free 7-under 64. She rocketed up the board on Day 3, now sitting at T-5 with Yuka Saso, five back of Boutier.
Nasa Hataoka is alone in second at 8 under while Minjee Lee and Brooke Henderson are tied for third at 7 under.
Coverage of the final round will be available on Golf Channel from 5:30-11 a.m. ET Sunday.
The fourth of five women’s major championships is here as the best players in the world have made their way to Evian-les-Bains, France, for the 2023 Amundi Evian Championship at Evian Resort Golf Club.
Last year’s champion Brooke Henderson comes into the week in great form, totaling three top-15 finishes in her last four starts, including the U.S. Women’s Open and KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.
Hyo Joo Kim, the 8th-ranked player in the world, is the betting favorite at +1200 (12/1). She’s yet to win in 2023, however, she’s finished inside the top 20 in nine of her 10 LPGA starts this year. Kim tied for third at the Evian last season.
Sunday at Pebble Beach Golf Links is set to be spectacular, as the final round of the U.S. Women’s Open is upon us. And there are no shortage of storylines.
Nasa Hataoka, off the heels of a stellar 6-under 66 on Saturday, holds the lead at 7 under with 18 holes to play. Allisen Corpuz sits second, one shot behind. Then there’s Hyo Joo Kim and Bailey Tardy, the 36-hole leader, three shots back at 4 under.
Minjee Lee, the 2022 champion, and Rose Zhang, are T-9 and 1 over. They have plenty of grounds to make up, but everyone is chasing Hataoka.
Here are the tee times for the final round of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open on the Monterey Peninsula.
Note: All times listed are ET. Pebble Beach is three hours behind.
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Tee times
1st tee
Tee time
Players
10 a.m.
Celine Boutier, Ashleigh Buhai
10:11 a.m.
Carlota Ciganda, Nanna Koerstz Madsen
10:22 a.m.
Haruka Kawasaki, Moriya Jutanugarn
10:33 a.m.
Azahara Munoz, Brittany Lang
10:44 a.m.
Miyu Sato, Grace Kim
10:55 a.m.
Gemma Dryburgh, Linn Grant
11:06 a.m.
Minji Park, Chisato Iwai
11:17 a.m.
Marina Alex, Cheyenne Knight
11:28 a.m.
Minami Katsu, Aya Kinoshita
11:39 a.m.
Nelly Korda, Gaby Lopez
11:50 a.m.
Sei Young Kim, Emma Spitz
12:01 p.m.
Lindy Duncan, Haeji Kang
12:12 p.m.
Gabriela Ruffels, So Mi Lee
12:23 p.m.
A Lim Kim, Jenny Coleman
12:34 p.m.
Haru Nomura, Albane Valenzuela
12:45 p.m.
Lizette Salas, Charlotte Thomas
12:56 p.m.
Aditi Ashok, Ruixin Lin
1:07 p.m.
Yuka Saso, Amari Avery
1:18 p.m.
Hye-Jin Choi, Mina Harigae
1:29 p.m.
Jodi Ewart Shadoff, Benedetta Moresco
1:40 p.m.
Monet Chun, Bronte Law
1:51 p.m.
Lydia Ko, Mao Saigo
2:02 p.m.
Hannah Green, Andrea Lee
2:13 p.m.
Pajaree Anannarukarn, DaYeon Lee
2:24 p.m.
Kana Mikashima, So Yeon Ryu
2:35 p.m.
Ally Ewing, Jeongeun Lee6
2:46 p.m.
Patty Tavatanakit, Brooke Henderson
2:57 p.m.
Charley Hull, Minjee Lee
3:08 p.m.
Xiyu Janet Lin, Ruoning Yin
3:19 p.m.
Amy Yang, Aine Donegan
3:30 p.m.
Rose Zhang, Maja Stark
3:41 p.m.
Perrine Delacour, Dottie Ardina
3:52 p.m.
Angel Yin, In Gee Chun
4:03 p.m.
Ayaka Furue, Jiyai Shin
4:14 p.m.
Nasa Hataoka, Leona Maguire
4:25 p.m.
Hae Ran Ryu, Hyo Joo Kim
4:26 p.m.
Bailey Tardy, Allisen Corpuz
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