Minjee Lee has spent these past few years feeling golf’s glories and agonies more than most.
She won her first major tournament at the 2021 Evian Championship, a come-from-behind playoff victory, and followed it less than a year later with a record-setting win at the 2022 U.S. Women’s Open. Then came a tie for 43rd when she tried to defend her Evian title, worries about exhaustion and a pair of frustrating finishes in the first two majors of this year.
Now ranked sixth in the world after reaching No. 2 last summer, Lee, a 27-year-old Australian, will have to conquer Pebble Beach Golf Links — the renowned course on the California coast — if she is to defend her Open title. The tournament begins Thursday.
In a springtime interview at T.P.C. Harding Park in San Francisco, Lee discussed her masterful iron play, the hazards of Pebble Beach, the evolution of the women’s game and why winning a major once, never mind twice, is so difficult.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You haven’t missed a cut at a major since 2019.
I didn’t even know.
How much of that represents a progression of your athletic talent versus your mind-set?
You’re always trying to get a little bit better each day. So for me, for my progression and not having missed a cut over that…
