Thanks to his strong play at the Cognizant Classic, golf fans will have the treat of watching Min Woo Lee tee it up at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The 25-year-old tied Erik van Rooyen for second place at PGA National, finishing three strokes behind winner Austin Eckroat.
Eckroat became the fourth player this season to earn his first PGA Tour title, which Lee hopes to accomplish soon.
Still, Lee’s second-place finish at the Cognizant Classic marks his best result on the PGA Tour. His previous best finish came at last year’s U.S. Open, where he tied for fifth at the Los Angeles Country Club.
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Perhaps the free-swinging Australian can break through with a victory next week at Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando—the site of the fourth Signature Event of the PGA Tour season.
Signature Events feature limited fields and the top players on the PGA Tour. The AON Next 10 and the AON Swing 5—two rankings that calculate players in good form based on recent FedEx Cup points earned—also receive invites into these elevated fields.
Lee earned 245 FedEx Cup points at the Cognizant Classic, thus vaulting his way to Bay Hill through the AON Swing 5. Justin Lower, Stephan Jaeger, C.T. Pan, and Sami Valimaki will join Lee at Bay Hill via the AON Swing 5.
“I think [I needed to finish] solo third,” Lee said after his second-place finish.
“I knew that before [Sunday] night that I needed to play like that. Yeah, it’s amazing. I was thinking about it coming down the stretch. Obviously thinking about the win, but yeah, was a really proud moment today.”
Lee began the day on a tear, birdieing the par-4 9th and eagling the par-5 10th to quickly soar up the leaderboard to 13-under.
He then made a birdie at the par-4 12th, and suddenly, the Aussie had a chance to do something special.
Lee then tapered off, finishing the round with six straight pars and ultimately settling for a 14-under score for the tournament.
“Not really a winning score,” Lee reasoned.
“There’s a lot of times where you just kind of think like too far ahead, so it was just a one-shot-at-a-time kind of moment, especially after the rain delay. Yeah, really proud of the way I handled myself this week. Obviously bad swing on [five] when I made a double bogey on the par-3, which stung. I was off to a hot start there, and that kind of put me back.”
On Sunday evening, after the three-hour, 30-minute delay, Lee got off to a terrific start—similar to how he began Monday morning.
He made birdies at the 3rd and the 4th, and arrived at the par-3 5th looking to keep that momentum.
But he put his tee shot in the water guarding the green, leading to a double-bogey five.
That proved costly in the end. If he found the putting surface there, and made par, Lee could have arrived at the 72nd hole—a par-5—facing a one-shot deficit instead of three.
And yet, he still did what he needed to do to qualify for Bay Hill.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
