By John Huggan
GEELONG, Australia — Once upon a time, it was a tradition. When a son or daughter reached the age of 21, he or she was presented with a key to the front door of the family home. Times have moved on though, especially if the offspring in question happens to be a successful golfer. Min Woo Lee is 21 and, with victory in the Vic Open, the big-hitting Western Australian has unfettered access to any European Tour event through the end of the 2020-’21 season.

Lee, whose sister Minjee is a two-time winner of the concurrent women’s event held at the 13th Beach Golf Links, an hour outside Melbourne, shot 19-under-par 269 to finish two shots clear of New Zealand’s Ryan Fox. Minjee didn’t do so badly either. Six under par for her 72 holes, the elder Lee finished T-6, two shots behind the new women’s champion, Hee Young Park of South Korea. Park beat a pair of compatriots, So Yeon Ryu and Hye-Jin Choi, at the fourth hole of a (not-so) sudden-death playoff.

Still, any disappointment his big sister, No. 9 in the women’s world rankings, was feeling was easily submerged by Min Woo’s maiden professional victory. Long seen as a “can’t miss” candidate for eventual stardom, the former U.S. Junior Amateur champion handled the blustery conditions over the weekend on the exposed Bellarine Peninsula better than anyone. Only once in his final round did anything more than a par scar his scorecard—and even that was relatively insignificant coming as it did on the 71st hole.

“I’m pretty proud of the way I played,” said Lee, who opened his second European Tour season with a third-place finish in the Australian PGA Championship just before Christmas but arrived home after missing the cut in last week’s Saudi International. “I thought coming in I had a really good chance because I was hitting it really good, but I think I impressed myself with the game this whole week. I have an advantage because I can keep the ball down in winds like we saw here. And my sister and I winning the same tournament is pretty special. But I’ve got bragging rights now. Even better is that I can pick and choose my schedule for the next couple of years. It’s pretty sweet.”

Jack Thomas/Getty Images
Lee celebrates during the final round as he claims his first European Tour title in his native Australia.

In the face of her brother’s light-hearted provocation, Minjee commendably took the high road, having already greeted her younger sibling with a prolonged bearhug as he left the 72nd green.

“I was super, super proud of him,” said the five-time LPGA winner with a smile. “It was really cool to be here with him and watch him the last two holes. I haven’t really seen him play that much. To have a win here is really cool.”

For all the excitement in the home crowd, Lee’s long-predicted victory and relatively serene progress to the 18th green wasn’t the best golf played on the final day. That honour must go to Fox’s 64, what he called “comfortably the best round I’ve ever played in a tournament.” Three shots better than anyone else managed on the final day (the average score was 71.2) and bogey-free, the burly 33-year-old made four birdies and two eagles.

On the other side of the tournament that uniquely sees full fields of men and women playing alongside each other for equal prize money, Park’s ascent to what is her third LPGA victory was a bit more convoluted than her male counterpart’s. Her closing 73 on a day when the average score for the women was 74.12 was an up-and-down mixture of four birdies and five bogeys.

Jack Thomas/Getty Images
Park held off fellow South Koreans So Yeon Ryu and Hye-Jin Choi in a playoff for her first win since 2013.

Tied on eight under par after 72 holes, the Korean trio was down to a pair when Ryu failed to make birdie on the 490-yard par-5 18th hole the second time round. Another half in birdies followed, before Choi, who so nearly won the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open as a 17-year-old amateur, blocked her drive way right into some wild undergrowth. An unsuccessful hack and a near-top into a hazard followed, effectively ending the battle.

“I played four more holes than Min Woo, so I am every tired,” said an emotional Park, who had considered giving up golf last year having seen her victory drought that dated back to the 2013 Manulife Financial LPGA Classic continue. “The win was very tough. But I hit the ball good all day. I didn’t actually know where I stood until the 17th green. I tried very hard after that.”

Effort and good ball-striking. Another key to victory, male or female.

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By Keely Levins
Michelle Wie liked how Lorena Ochoa said good-bye to competitive golf. After spending 158 consecutive weeks as the No. 1 player in the world, Ochoa decided to have a family, retired at age 28 and made a clean break from the game.

“I definitely idolise her and look up to her, so when she did that, I was like that’s pretty cool,” Wie said on Friday, a day after revealing that she and her husband, Jonnie West, are expecting their first child, a girl, this summer. Wie explained that before getting married last August, she assumed she’d follow Ochoa’s lead when she decided to have kids and quit pro golf entirely.

“I thought it was going to be too hard to [to play and have a family], something that I didn’t want to do. I just had that in my mind,” Wie said.

But assumptions change when reality arrives.

After announcing her pregnancy, Wie said she has no intention of quitting golf. In part, it’s because she has some “unfinished business” when it comes to her career. Equally important, though, Wie said she wants her daughter to see her play. Wie was inspired last summer when Suzann Pettersen held her son, Herman, in her arms after holing the winning putt at the Solheim Cup, and when how Tiger’s children were there to see him win the Masters.

“The motivation to come back is even stronger because I’m having a girl,” Wie said. “I really want her to see me play. I want her to see me be a strong woman. That’s really important to me. The motivation to come back and play is definitely there.”

Jamie Squire

So when, exactly, is she coming back? In the short term, that’s an unknown. Wie is formally considered on maternity leave by the LPGA, but can still play in as many events as she wants and is capable of playing in. Wie says she’d love to play competitively while pregnant, but she barely left the house during her first trimester.

“I don’t think they should call it morning [sickness], it was 24/7,” Wie said, laughing. Though she spent most of her time at home, she did get out a few times to hit some putts, chips and even a few full-swing shots.

Coming back to golf is more complicated than just managing playing while pregnant, given that Wie continues to deal with an ailing right wrist, an injury that forced her to withdraw from the remainder of the 2019 season in June.

“I’ve seen some doctors and they think the extra time [off] will be amazing for me,” Wie said.

It’s also not just about managing the injury itself, but dealing with what the injury did to her mentally in 2019. There was an emotional moment at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in June, her last official start, where Wie broke down in tears in front of the media, admitting she wasn’t sure how much golf her body was still capable of playing. It was a view into how devastating the injury was to her psyche.

“The amount of pain I was in last year, there were a lot of times when I didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was tough to want to go through that every day. I felt like my mind was there, but my body was completely lagging,” Wie said. “I think I definitely have PTSD from that. It’s nice that I’ve spent some time away to forget it. I think that pain is scarring. There was a moment where when I looked at a golf ball, I was terrified because I knew what that pain [of hitting it] was going to feel like. But with time away, the memory of it is getting less and less. It was really fun hitting balls a few months ago. That was a refreshing place to begin again.”

The next time we’ll likely see Wie, then, won’t be playing at an LPGA event. Instead, it will likely be in April, when she will be working with CBS on their multimedia coverage of the Masters. Her specific role has not yet been announced, but Wie has been enjoying her recent foray into golf television. She worked as a studio analyst for the Golf Channel during the Solheim Cup in September.

“I’m surprised with how much I liked it,” Wie said of the experience. “I knew I was going to like it, but I didn’t expect to like it that much.”

As Wie prepares for the Masters and the arrival of her daughter, she uses the words like “comfortable” and “extremely happy” when she describes how she feels about her life currently. While navigating the excitement and uncertainty of her first pregnancy, she sounds composed, and there’s a resolve to the way she talks about her new goals. They are ones she didn’t expect to have but that come when the perspective of becoming a parent sets in.

“It’s definitely a dream of mine for my kid to be in the crowd and watch me play,” Wie said. “Did I think that a couple years ago? Not at all.”

The post Michelle Wie says becoming a mom won’t be the end of her pro career. It’s a motivator to play more. appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.