Emergency 9: Fantasy advice from Round 2 of the CareerBuilder Challenge

When K.H. Lee looks back to the starting point of his golf journey, he can only marvel at how a twist of fate which saw him learn the game with a Ted Lasso-type swing coach has since led him to stardom on the PGA TOUR. In May, Lee became the eighth and latest Korean winner on TOUR following his triumph at the AT&T Byron Nelson which cemented his rise to prominence. And it all began with an initial foray to the local driving range as a 13-year-old trying to lose weight following an initial tinker as a shot put athlete. “My dad had a restaurant and next door was a driving range. I followed him for fun and eventually took lessons. My main motive was to go there and lose weight, but I never lost any weight,” laughed Lee, who tipped the scales at 212 pounds during his teens. After being bitten by the golf bug, Lee found encouragement through the uplifting and inspirational ways of a local golf pro, whose teaching style can be likened to Ted Lasso, the fictional soccer coach starring in the self-titled sports comedy-drama streaming TV series. “The reason I continued was the pro who was teaching juniors, and he kept giving me positive feedback about my swing. He was very encouraging and complimented me often and I felt good. That kept me going in golf and he bragged to others about me, and it made me work hard. I remember my mother was a violin teacher and she tried to teach me which did not go well. When she asked me to practice a piece 10 times, I haphazardly did it without any concentration. Golf was different. It was fun and I could go on for hours.” Within a few years, Lee’s exceptional talents saw him being part of the gold medal Korean Team at the 2010 Asian Games in China, which exempts him from mandatory military service. He turned professional soon after and amassed two victories each on the Korean Tour and Japan Golf Tour from between 2012 to 2016. He subsequently took the big leap of faith to America and qualified for the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016 and two years later, three runner-up results saw him secure his dream PGA TOUR card which Lee cherishes, largely due to the sacrifices and support of his parents through the years. “Like everyone else, my parents sacrificed a lot. They supported me with everything. They never told me to quit even when my game was not going well. My father wanted to be a baseball player, but his parents were against it. Since he could not do what he wanted, he decided to support his son, me,” said Lee, who is the only child. “He encouraged me and helped in every way possible. He was there since the beginning. We would go abroad to practice every winter and he was my chauffer to tournaments. When my father was with me on the Korn Ferry Tour, he had a difficult time with the food. It was difficult to find a decent Korean or Asian restaurant in the countryside and I remember he had his tooth pulled out during one trip! They gave me everything they could, and I cannot sufficiently show my appreciation.” Lee is now one the most jovial golfers on the PGA TOUR, and joked during an interview that he had two big goals in life – to become the No. 1 player in the world and the sexiest golfer alive. “When I won in May, my goals went viral as many golfers were amused by this story,” he said. “Being sexy means to be a muscular guy. It’s in my dream but not quite possible in reality. I want to be muscular, but I enjoy eating so much. For example, I try not to eat dinner if I have a big lunch, but when dinner time comes, I am usually hungry again. I will work out hard, but I will eat hard as well.” With this week’s THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT in Las Vegas being a “home” game for Lee and the other Koreans in the field – the tournament is being played outside its traditional home in Korea for the second straight year due to the pandemic – Lee hopes to hit the jackpot again to get his 2021-22 Season going. “Last season was the best and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. It was my best year on the golf course, and we had a baby,” said Lee, who welcomed the arrival of his first child, a baby girl named Celine Yuna Lee, in July with wife, Joo Yeon Yu. “I’m looking forward to the new season, and the goal will be to have another victory and getting myself into the top-50 in the world. Playing for Korea, representing the International Team in the Presidents Cup next year would also be a huge ambition. I’m trying to focus on winning and if I can get into the top-50, it would probably assure me of a spot in the Presidents Cup. I would be honored beyond measure to represent my country,” added the Korean, who finished 31st on the FedExCup standings last season.

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Tiger Woods, in the biggest group on the course alongside Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth, gets going at the PGA Championship. We follow his every move.

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OVERVIEW Normally it might be hard to summon an encore performance in the season after winning a major, but reigning Masters champion Patrick Reed has never had a problem with motivation and will likely have no trouble pinpointing where he can improve in 2019. Reed’s tee-to-green play, so good as he copped his first major at Augusta National Golf Club, is still a work in progress. That’s a strange thing to say for a guy who has won in every season but one since he joined the PGA TOUR in 2013, but Reed, 28, is a player whose otherworldly short game, much more than his long game, has made him a star. Just check his Strokes Gained stats from last season: 107th in Off-the-Tee, 84th in Approach-the-Green, and 2nd in Around-the-Green. Far from an aberration, those numbers are emblematic of his whole career, and explain why he is occasionally prone to wild fluctuations from one round to the next. In late October, Reed finished T7 at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, with a 64-72-70-77 scoring line. It was his only start so far in the 2018-19 season, so don’t read too much into it, but it wasn’t the first time he’s gone so cold, so fast. He struggled on a tight Ryder Cup course, and the week before that finished near the bottom at the TOUR Championship. Should Reed find a way to eliminate those stretches of bad golf in 2019, look out. — By Cameron Morfit Click here to see who else made the Top 30 list. BY THE NUMBERS FEDEXCUP UPDATE Current 2018-19 position: 82nd Playoff appearances: 6 TOUR Championship appearances: 5 Best result: 3rd in the 2015-16 season SHOTLINK FUN FACT Patrick Reed ranked second on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green last season and ranked 11th in Scrambling — career-best performances in both categories. INSIDER INSIGHTS PGATOUR.COM’s Insiders offer their expert views on what to expect from Patrick Reed in 2019. TOUR INSIDER: From the Presidents Cup (one appearance, 2017) to the Ryder Cup (three appearances), Reed is one of the most exciting, and excitable, players in the game. Other than perhaps the most recent Ryder Cup, when he returned to form only for his singles win over Tyrrell Hatton (3 and 2), he’s the catalyst U.S. teams had been missing for years. How ironic, then, that the thing that would help him most is playing more boring golf. Fairways. Greens. — By Cameron Morfit FANTASY INSIDER: It doesn’t seem like it’s been already seven seasons since he was identified only as a prodigious open qualifier. Yet, the 2018 Master champ already is 54th in all-time earnings on the PGA TOUR. If there’s a rub, it’s that he should be even higher as he’s been even odds either to record a top 25 or to finish outside that bubble since 2016-17. The thing is, he loves to travel and compete, so that resonates in our world. While we do share some of him with the European Tour (where he finished No. 2 in the 2018 Race to Dubai), it’s a formula that works for him and us. Won’t turn 29 until the 2019 FedExCup Playoffs, during which he’ll be chasing his sixth consecutive trip to the TOUR Championship. — By Rob Bolton EQUIPMENT INSIDER: Reed started the sweeping trend of 2018 major championship winners to play without equipment contracts. The former Nike staffer actually still has a remnant of his former sponsor by way of a Nike VR Pro Limited Edition 3 wood. In the beginning of 2018, Reed was testing a number of different drivers, eventually settling in with a Ping G400 LST driver that he used to win the Masters, and he’s still currently gaming it. In the equipment world, Reed is also known for his USA-flag-inspired Odyssey White Hot Pro 3 putter, but he’s since switched into a custom Scotty Cameron… with red-white-and-blue dots, obviously, because he’s “Captain America.â€� — By Andrew Tursky STYLE INSIDER: Reed’s move to Nike has resulted in better fits and more adventurous looks. Case in point, he ditched the traditional Sunday red at the Masters in favor of an energetic azalea pink as he slipped on the Green Jacket. Recently, he has been sporting trendy tonal camos in a variety of colors. Hopefully, he will continue to push his style comfort and continue to sharpen the fit of his clothing in 2019. — By Greg Monteforte

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