Meena Lee: Superstar?

The Rookie of the Year race has been somewhat of a one sided affair on the LPGA this year. Talented teen Paula Creamer, who won an event earlier this season and has notched numerous other good finishes besides, seems on a one way ticket to that trophy. But this should not detract from the great season four promising Korean rookies are having. These four players - Meena Lee, Joo Mi Kim, Young Jo and Sung Ah Yim - have been second through fifth on the Rookie of the Year standings pretty much all season. However, they have swapped places in those standings almost on a weekly basis. Each one has produced some great results this year, and each has had a reasonable chance to win an event. Each looks set to keep their exemptions for 2006. But no one of them had, before a few weeks ago, really solidified herself as the player who could challenge Creamer.

So you had Sung Ah Yim, who got out to a great start at the year's first event and nearly made a top ten in the process. You had Young Jo, who also started the year well. Then along came Joo Mi Kim, who played in the final group on Sunday at the Sybase Classic, ending up with a 5th place finish. Soon after that, Meena Lee came within one hole of winning the Corning Classic, ending up second. At the US Women's Open, the second best Korean finisher was Young Jo, who tied for 6th. Then the next week, Meena Lee had a great finish at the Women's World Match Play. Then at the Farr, it was Yim who stepped up, nearly winning the event but just missing a birdie to clinch it. And then came the Canadian Women's Open, and Meena Lee once again stepping up. And with that event, it was Meena who, at least for the moment, seemed to answer the question of who the top Korean rookie for 2005 will be. And further, seemed to suggest that we could be seeing the start of a truly special LPGA career.

Meena Lee: a superstar in the making?

High school days. Meena Lee (center) and
Birdie Kim (right) went to the same high school and
were on the golf team together
(click to enlarge)

Like a lot of Korean golf stars, Meena Lee did not start playing golf seriously until she was a teenager. In her case, she was 14 when she took the game up. She started by playing for her high school team, where she was paired with another promising young player named Kim Ju Yun (Kim would later become internationally known when she changed her English name to Birdie Kim and won the US Women's Open in 2005). Both she and Kim would end up being among the best amateur golfers in the country, and both would play for the Korean national team at various times.

After winning several prestigious amateur events, including the 2000 Korean Amateur Championship, Meena Lee turned professional in March of 2002. It did not take her long to make a splash on the KLPGA tour. In fact, by the end of the year, she had won three tournaments, and would go on to claim the money list title, the MVP and the Rookie of the Year for that year. This also qualified her to play in the Samsung World Championship of Women's Golf, which that year was contested in Napa Valley. It was there this reporter first got a chance to watch her play, and though she would not do too well, it was good experience to prepare her for her eventual move to America.

In 2003, she was somewhat overshadowed on the KLPGA tour by the performance of a new, younger superstar, Joo Mi Kim. Still, she did reasonably well, finishing fifth on the money list. She decided it was time to try playing in America. In 2004, she joined the Futures Tour after she failed to qualify for the LPGA tour at Q-School. But after a year of playing, she was only able to get three top ten finishes, and finished 23rd on the Futures Tour money list. By now she was going by the English name 'Mee Lee', and it was under this name that she attended Q-School at the end of 2004. Fortunately, she did quite well there, finally snagging an exempt card for the LPGA by finishing 25th. It wasn't an incredible performance, but it was good enough, and now she would have an entire season to test herself in the big leagues. Ironically, one of the golfers she would be facing in the Rookie race in 2005 would be Joo Mi Kim, who had replaced her as the top golfer in the KLPGA in 2003. She'd have another chance to see how she measured up to her old rival.

But things did not get out to a great start for Mee Lee in 2005. While other rookies such as Young Jo, Sung Ah Yim and even Sae Hee Son were compiling good finishes, Lee was struggling. She managed to make the cut in her first event, the SBS Open, but only finished 69th. She then missed the next 4 cuts before she made her next cut, at the Franklin Mortgage Championship. But even there, she only managed a 74th place finish, then it was 2 more missed cuts. Around this time, she changed her name to "Meena Lee" again.

Meena with one of her
KLPGA trophies

Meena nearly won the Corning Classic in May

Finally in May, she turned a corner in a big way. At the Sybase Classic north of New York City, a whole bunch of Korean players did quite well, and Meena was no exception. While her old rival Joo Mi was contending for the title (she eventually finished 5th), Meena put together a decent tournament, eventually capturing her first top 20 and finishing tied for 20th. Not a sensational result, perhaps, but a good one. An encouraging first step.

The very next week, she contended for her first title. And how! The event was the Corning Classic, and she played well enough there to get herself into one of the final groups on Sunday. One could forgive her for being nervous, having a chance to win her first LPGA event with none other than Annika Sorenstam in the field, but Meena did not waver, and managed to capture a share of the lead with a clutch birdie on the 17th hole. By that point, both she and equally unknown Korean Jimin Kang were two shots up on Sorenstam, and it looked like whoever could last the pressure for one more hole would take home the trophy. Alas, that person was not Meena. She struggled from the tee shot forward on that final hole, getting a few dodgy lies in thick rough and winding up with a double bogey to show for her efforts while Kang parred. Thus, Jimin became the first time winner and collected the free Rolex watch. But Meena had managed a tie for second, by far her best finish to date. She had finally shown that she could play on the LPGA tour and be competitive.