ATLANTA — Min Woo Lee doesn’t need to be sad anymore.
He is headed back in the right direction — and in a big way.
Lee turned in a bogey-free round of 8-under 62 to take a two-shot, first-round lead at the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup playoffs finale, on Thursday.
Lee, who tied his career low for a round, had birdies on Nos. 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16 and 18 at East Lake Golf Club in his Tour Championship
debut.
Lee, a 28-year-old Australian, entered the FedEx Cup playoffs 11th in the points standings. He slipped to 15th after the St. Jude Championship and to 21st after the BMW Championship. He rocketed to the top of the leaderboard with a $10 million first prize at stake.
Collin Morikawa, Chris Gotterup and Norway’s Viktor Hovland are two shots back of Lee after opening with 6-under 64s. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is among a quartet three shots off the lead at 5-under 65.
Lee said he was “sad” after his recent performances.
“I probably should have done a better job out there when I was playing,” Lee said. “The results were not good, and that’s kind of how I felt. … Being out there, I thought, why not give it a good crack and have a good attitude. That was probably a thing that I had to work on over the last two weeks.”
So discouraged was Lee that he said he found himself looking in the bags of other players, trying to find a solution. He ended up changing shafts on his clubs, something his team was not thrilled about. He went with a heavier shaft.
Whatever it takes.
“(My) coach back home said, ‘Why are you swinging it so fast?'” Lee said. “It didn’t look like that, but yeah, sure enough, I was swinging it pretty fast. Slowed it down a little bit, and the ball actually came out nice.”
Lee, who played the last 13 holes by himself after JJ Spaun withdrew with a right shoulder injury, was one shot off the 2024 pre-renovation course record of 9-under 61 set by Russell Henley in the first round of last year’s Tour Championship. Zach Johnson shot a 10-under 60 in 2007.
“It was a little strange at first, just like looking for a playing partner and you’re just there by yourself,” Lee said. “It was more just maintaining speeds and not rushing because I would just catch the group in front and wait. So I had to just slow down a little bit.”
–Chris Vivlamore, Field Level Media
